Life is quite a jungle and thank goodness we each have a visiting teacher to help us navigate the way.
We made the evening a secret for the sisters, we did it on an Enrichment night with a dinner but did not tell them that it was going to be a VT conference. (we thought if they knew it was a VT conference many might not come, especially the ones we really needed to reach).
We did a couple of cute posters in the jungle theme advertising the evening.
A few Sunday’s before my secretary named (Jane) and I went into the Primary, YW, and RS and did this mini skit:
Skit a few weeks before:
I came in dressed in a straw hat with plastic snakes hanging out all over and ivy intertwined around the hat, holding binoculars, said something about how I was feeling lost in the jungle and having to encounter, snakes, and wild beasts and how would I ever make it through this jungle?
Then I called for Jane, “Jane of the Jungle” to help me out. My secretary then came and and said not to worry that she had the solutions to help me through the jungle, I just needed to come to enrichment night, date and time and I would find my way.
Goal:
Our goal for the VT conference was to get the sisters not only to make their visits but to build a meaningful loving relationship with those they visit. In our ward our VT numbers are really high about (95%) but we wanted to stress quality visits with the sisters.
Decorations:
We decorated the cultural hall like a jungle. We used artificial trees from many sisters homes, covered the tables in brown paper, center pieces were baskets with fresh jungle fruits, and origami jungle animals. We used leopard and tiger print napkins. We made a large sign over the food table saying “It’s a jungle out there”.
Name Tags:
When the sisters arrived we gave them a name tag with the one of 2 types of jungle animal on it. After the meal, I gave a 5 minute talk on how our life can be like a jungle with all kinds of beautiful experiences as well as encountering difficulties like wild beasts and hard roads to travel. How blessed we are to have visiting teachers to hold our hand, to be our guide and friend through our journey in the jungle of life.
Skit:
After this my VT supervisors, and coordinator, and presidency did a skit.
This it the shoe skit you have probably seen where a sister is in the shoe store looking for the right pair of shoes, many pairs of shoes come in ( 2 sisters wearing, sneakers, slippers etc).
We changed the skit a little so that the sister looking for the shoes was preparing to take a safari in the jungle and needed just the right pair for her journey. She ended up with a pair of hiking boots that would be strong, sturdy and supportive during her safari through the jungle. It was very funny and all the sisters loved that.
After the skit we divided into 2 groups based on the jungle animal name tag and put on 2 workshops on how to be a good visiting teacher, each lasting about 15 min then the sisters would switch rooms and go to the other workshop.
Food:
We served homemade ice-cream with fresh fruit for desert. The whole evening was a great success, it was our best attended Enrichment night of the year. I had the VT supervisors, coordinator and myself plan and implement the whole evening.
