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Another visiting teaching conference we did was to put on a nice dinner for the sisters. We related each part of the dinner to visiting teaching and just before each course we talked about the correlation to visiting teaching. Part of why we did this was so that whenever the sisters were eating dinner (like every night) it might help to remind them of visiting teaching and being good visiting teachers.

PREPARATION FOR THE DINNER: We related the preparation of the food, setting the tables in a nice fashion, etc. as the preparation we do as visiting teachers. These include living the gospel in our daily lives, reading the scriptures, saying our prayers, etc. so that we can be good examples since this teaches far more than mere words. This also represents the preparations of reading the lesson, calling and setting up appointments with our sisters, etc.

PRAYER ON THE FOOD: Represented all the special prayers for our sisters. Our personal prayers on their behalf and prayer with our companion.

APPETIZER: All friendly contact outside of the visit: for example at church, phone calls or just dropping off a plate of cookies etc. "just because." All these things are appetizers for the real visit and help set a positive tone and comfort with each sister.

MAIN COURSE: This of course would be the visit itself. Just as a nice dinner would be presented in a nice way, so should a visit. Take time to carefully read the lesson and know how to best present it to each sister. With a nice meal we also take time to put it on nice dishes and also make the food itself look nice -- we should also look nice when we go to visit our sisters. You can certainly have a meal without a dessert or an appetizer but it wouldn't be a meal without a main course. Our bishop refers to the visit itself as just the minimum to be done.

DESSERT: This should be the sweet friendships that develop as a result of good visiting teaching. There should be friendships developed with your companion as well as the sisters visited.

In addition to the above we invited the stake RS Presidency to come. However, we warned them ahead of time as to what we were going to do. When they arrived we pretended to be surprised and to have forgotten they were coming. We threw a cloth on the floor for them and quickly threw paper products for them (everyone else had nice dishes to eat on and needless to say it didn't look nice). As we served each item we explained to the stake visitors that we didn't have time to make them nice food so we brought out a head of lettuce and tomato and a knife, etc. instead of salad for example.

We did have a main course for them, but no dessert. We used this through out the meeting as a contrast to visiting teaching done without the necessary work and preparation. (I have to tell you that after we had made our point with each category we did bring the nicer things out for the Stake to eat with us. You could also invite the bishop and his wife or just any other sisters in the ward to sit at a "special table" for the same purpose.