Today in Relief Society we had our much-anticipated Visiting Teaching Conference. It was my inaugural performance as a member of the presidency. Our goal was to inspire and motivate the sisters to visit teach. It turned out very nice and I think it was inspirational. There are five of us - the president, three counselors, and me, and we each took a topic:
Stewardship
Each person who has been called to be a visiting teacher is a steward over those people she's called to visit. John 21:15-17 "Lovest thou me?...feed my sheep."
Accountability
We will all someday be asked to account for the people we were called to visit teach. How will we feel when we come before the Lord?
Opportunities
Visiting teaching is an opportunity to create friendships. We have the opportunity to form friendships and get to know those people on a spiritual level as we share the monthly messages. Bonnie D. Parkin said, "what we call visiting teaching is really so much more than a visit or a thought. It's how we connect with one another...."
Encouragement
Visiting Teaching is one aspect of the gospel that we can be perfect in. We just have to do it. There are so many ways we can let people know we care about them -- especially just letting them know we are willing to spend time with them.
Ideas
Our president concluded the conference with some ideas for visiting teaching. Her catch phrase was "Getting past the one-liners." She brought pictures she had taken of different people in the ward -- the oldest sister, the youngest Relief Society sister, the Bishop's wife, a missionary, etc. and said that while it's easy for us to know these statistics about people, we need to get past the one-liner and get to know who they really are. Some ideas are sharing your talents and finding out the talents of others, asking about their experiences, arranging to visit each other at the same day and time each month, or meeting somewhere other than home for a visit....
If I had thought to take my camera I would have taken a picture of the amazing refreshments we had. Our third counselor is a great cook and she baked an assortment of muffins and breads and set a beautiful table. All in all, I think our goal of having people leave with a positive attitude about visiting teaching was accomplished.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
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3 comments:
Sounds wonderful, thankyou for sharing your thoughts.
This sounds like a great conference, did you have a good turnout for it? I always find these kind of things very motivating.
This accountability aspect hits home with me. You know I take visiting teaching seriously, so I definitely feel accountable for the sisters I visit. We had visiting teaching interviews last month and it felt so great to be able to feel good about my relationships with these women and to be able to say I knew what was going on in their lives and if they needed help.
I like this thought about getting past the one liners, that's great.
Jill -- your post last month on VT'ing was part of my inspiration for the outline of this conference! I used that link you put on from the BYU Women's Conference and loved your thoughts from your interview. So I owe thanks to you that this turned out so well!! And we had a GREAT turnout (it helped that it was during R.S. and there was food).
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