Standing just an inch or two above five feet, the teacher at the front of the class would never be considered tall. But to the dozens who fill her classroom each week, this diminutive woman cuts a towering figure.

The students are learning to speak English as a second language. They know the woman at the front of the class is their conduit to a new language, new opportunities and a better life. They don't address the teacher by name — they call her 'Maestra', the Spanish word for teacher that is, at once, a term of respect and endearment.

The students in the English class are a diverse lot. Many are working men who provide for their families through their own skilled and calloused hands. Some are professionals who lack the language skills demanded by their professions in their new country.

And still others are young mothers who are eager to learn English so they can help their children with their evening homework, even as they assimilate themselves into a new culture.

But despite their differences, the students treasure their kind and diligent teacher and recognize the essential role she will play in their respective futures.

So it is with teachers of the gospel. Teachers in the Church answer to many names.

For a young couple, a teacher may be a wise bishop who offers precious counsel on marriage and family finance. For a troop of rowdy deacons, a teacher is that grizzled Scoutmaster who educates them on the finer points of tying a clove-hitch knot, swamping a canoe or saving a life. And for an earnest investigator, a teacher may be a pair of young sister missionaries testifying of modern prophets and restored truths.

Indeed, it is correctly said of teaching, "There is no greater calling." Each of us will be called upon to teach.

For many that charge will be fulfilled in front of a gospel doctrine class or, perhaps, with a group of Mia Maids or young Primary students. But most of our teaching experiences will not occur in a formal classroom setting.

Still, the devotion we offer to our "students" is as essential as that English teacher instructing her students on the ins-and-outs of a new language.

Almost everyone in the church will be assigned the nearly perpetual call of a home or visiting teacher. Such teachers provide a dual service.

First, they are entrusted with the sacred duty of monitoring and ensuring the welfare of families and individuals in wards and branches. But home and visiting teachers are also called upon to offer instruction in the lessons and principles of eternity.

For many members, the gospel lessons they receive each month in their living room from dutiful home and visiting teachers is the only gospel lesson they receive all month.

Those who magnified their calling to teach in the home have brought many who were once absent from Church activity back to full activity.

It is also correctly taught that our life's most important work will be performed inside the walls of our own homes.

Such definitive work is done, again, through teaching. As parents, as spouses, as siblings, and, yes, even as children, we have opportunities to teach those we love the most — the members of our own family.

Church leaders know well of the importance of teachers. They have offered much counsel in fulfilling this greatest of all callings.

In his October 2009 general conference address, Brother Russell T. Osguthorpe, Sunday School general president, spoke of a young teacher who forever influenced his life.

"When I was in my teens, a recently returned missionary named Brother Peterson taught our Sunday School class. Every week he would draw a large arrow from the lower left-hand corner of the blackboard pointing to the upper right-hand corner. Then he would write at the top of the blackboard, 'Aim High.'

"Whatever doctrine he was teaching, he would ask us to stretch ourselves, to reach a little higher than we thought was possible. The arrow and those two words, aim high, were a constant invitation throughout the lesson. Brother Peterson made me want to serve a good mission, to do better in school, to set my sights higher for my career.

"Brother Peterson had a work for us to do. His goal was to help us 'think about, feel about, and then do something about living gospel principles.' His teaching helped save my life."

Our living prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, a master communicator and teacher himself, spoke of our ultimate example of a divine teacher during the October 1997 general conference.

"There is one Teacher whose life overshadows all others. He taught of life and death, of duty and destiny. He lived not to be served, but to serve; not to receive, but to give; not to save His life, but to sacrifice it for others. He described a love more beautiful than lust, poverty richer than treasure.

"It was said of this Teacher that He taught with authority and not as did the scribes.

"In today's world, when many men are greedy for gold and for glory and are dominated by the philosophies of men, remember that this Teacher never wrote—once only He wrote on the sand, and wind destroyed forever His handwriting. His laws were not inscribed upon stone, but upon human hearts.

"I speak of the Master Teacher, even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind. The biblical account says of Him, He "went about doing good." With Him as our unfailing Guide and Exemplar, we shall qualify for His divine help in our [teaching].

"Lives will be blessed. Hearts will be comforted. Souls will be saved."