I just came home from an awesome Relief Society activity. We had a campfire right in the middle of the Primary room, told scary stories, and had an awesome time bonding. And we managed to host a visiting teaching seminar, as well. I’d like to pass on this great idea, courtesy of our President.
First, the setting. We were originally planning to host the campout in the chapel, but we decided that the Primary room was more cozy – and it was. We built a campfire right in the middle of the floor. Not a real fire, of course (although we told everyone we were going to have a campfire and left it at that). What we did was take a fan and tip it on its side so it was blowing straight up. We put a light underneath the fan, and tied red, yellow, and orange streamers to it. When the fan was turned on, the streamers stood straight up, and it looked like fire. As a finishing touch, we stacked wood in a pyramid around the campfire. Then we laid out blankets and brought in lawn chairs, and encouraged everyone to dress in their ‘camping clothes’ (I wore my PJs). We had a small lantern on a table in the background, and it and the ‘fire’ were the only lights; we turned off the main switch. Finally, we had one of those ‘ambient noise’ tapes of the forest; crickets and other night noises.
As everyone came in and gathered around, we spent some time talking and laughing. Then we shut the door (bye bye, hall light!) and had an opening prayer. We sang some fun camp songs to set the mood, and shared some embarrassing moments. By that point, everyone was relaxed and having fun. We then moved on to the visiting teaching portion of our seminar.
Earlier that day, I had created several strips of paper with various visiting teaching situations on it. For instance, we had a sister who was not home (her child answered the door), a sister who was critical of the church, a sister who was distracted by small children, and a companion who was very negative in the car on the way over to visit someone. I got to play all the negative people. One sister would draw a strip and role-play the visit with me, and then we would discuss other similar experiences and ways to handle the situation. Then the next sister would get to draw. In this way, we got to offer suggestions for various difficult visits.
We took a break then and went out to the parking lot to roast marshmallows for s’mores. Actually, since it was raining, we roasted them on a grill on the front porch. This was a fun little aside, even if the sister who brought the drinks – me again – forgot to put them out. Whoops! Anyway, we visited and snacked, and that was fun, too.
We returned to the Primary room and shared visiting teaching stories. Some were scary (like the sister who visited the house of a thousand cats), but most were funny (like the sister whose visiting teachee opened the door stark naked). We talked about the impact various visiting teachers had on our lives; we had two sisters who were inactive, and they shared the role their teachers played, and the difficulties they struggled with when their visiting teachers gave up on them. Finally, we closed with a prayer.
This was a great – and very unique – idea. It is a great way to encourage visiting teaching, and to assist in providing solutions to problems that sisters in your branch or ward might struggle with. I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I had a blast. It was a relaxed, casual environment, and was still very spiritual at the appropriate times. I highly recommend something similar to anyone looking for ideas for their visiting teaching conference or seminar.
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