After several years without having Visiting Teaching Conferences in our ward, we decided that it was important (critical!) to plan one every year.
The first year, we concentrated on workshops and had three: Visiting Teaching Basics, Visiting Teaching Problem Solving (troubleshooting issues that keep us from being effective Visiting Teachers, etc.) and Ideas for Teaching the Monthly Visiting Teaching Message. We held our conference at 8:00 a.m. (!) on a Saturday morning in early fall and we provided a yummy brunch which was actually eaten course by course in the workshop rooms (to make best use of time) and concluded with a keynote speaker in the RS room.
Our theme was “Visiting Teaching-Watering Spiritual Seeds” and each sister got a wooden cut-out of either a watering can or a potted daisy with a magnet for the fridge. They were painted real cute and the theme was printed on each magnet as a visual reminder of the importance of Visiting Teaching. We prepared a folder for every VT-even if they couldn’t be there-that had inspirational information about Visiting Teaching and all the handouts, etc. from the workshops and talk. We had a good turnout - about 85% of our Visiting Teachers.
The next year, we stuck with the early Saturday a.m. time and brunch format, but had a musical program (we bought the script “Only a Visiting Teacher” from the publisher). The play was about 50 minutes long, but quite touching, though it really tapped out our musical talent! There were many songs, some of which were solos and duets which were kind of scary and hard, but the storyline was wonderful and we all felt that it had been worth it to reach beyond our comfort level to put on this program.
After the performance, we got the comment we’d been looking for: “I got so much more out of this than if I had just been lectured to.” The stake Relief Society presidency was invited and they are still talking about it. Our gift to the Visiting Teachers was very cool, too! We got a (free) paint stir-stick and mounted a sheep cut-out on the top with 12 hearts Velcro-ed to the stick in a row underneath. The little hearts were each painted a different color and were printed with a month of the year. The sheep were printed with the message “Visiting Teaching Feeds His Sheep”. The idea is that the Visiting Teachers would put the month’s heart on the stick (which was drilled so you could hang it on the wall) as they completed that month’s Visiting Teaching.
We had even better attendance for this event, and I think we have shown by our efforts to put together a nice Visiting Teaching conference that Visiting Teaching is important in our ward and that we value all that our dedicated Visiting Teachers do for their sisters.
We are just putting together our Visiting Teaching conference for the third year - it is going to be great! I loved finding your ideas here - we’re all part of one big ward!
Jackie Mitchell
Posted by John in Visiting Teaching, VT-Leader Resources