Hospitality and Care

• The job of providing care and hospitality to those who need it has been part of a nun's responsibilities since medieval times. This duty continues in the 21st century, however, its application may vary according to the community in which the sister lives and works. Some convents provide care by volunteering to take in the homeless or otherwise needy, giving them food and a place to stay, while others offer volunteer nuns who are registered nurses.
  
  

Prayer

• A more spiritual role of a nun is to pray for others of her faith and for the human race as a whole. The idea is that nuns are able to pray on the behalf of others when the public at large are unable or unwilling to do so. Since nuns around the world pray at different times, the result is that prayer is a constant activity thanks to the many active communities of nuns. Nuns pray as individuals and communally, attending church services a few times a day.
  
  

Religious Teachings

• A primary form of teaching that nuns carry out is to educate the public, as well as practicing members of the nun's own religion, about their faith and its traditions. Nuns do this as traveling speakers, host lectures, or published teachings. Monasteries may accept individuals as guests to be taught in particular areas of their religion by nuns. Since religions are complex, nuns generally choose to specialize in a specific aspect, such as iconography or scripture.
  
  

Other Teaching

• Some nuns don't just teach others about religion, but also have a role as a general teacher, helping to educate children at local schools or in convent schools run by religious orders. In this role, nuns teach a variety of subjects such as writing and math at a basic level as well as introducing kids to aspects of their religion.
  
  

Support Monastery

• Since convents and monasteries are self-sufficient communities, nuns are often involved in efforts to keep them running by raising and collecting the funds needed. Nuns do this in a variety of ways; a popular method is to create items representative of their faith, such as candles and prayer ropes, which can be sold in local stores or on the monastery's premises. Others create music or calligraphy.