Visiting Teaching Leader and Relief Society President Tips

Here are some ideas for Relief Society Presidents, Visiting Teaching Leaders, Coordinators, and Supervisors:

When assigning or making changes to routes:

• It always helps to pray before making changes, and remind sisters that you prayed and felt inspired about these changes before

  passing out new routes.

• When I notify sisters by email, I always say something like "Bishop T. has approved the following changes to your route..." so they'll know that he is involved in making the changes.
• Ask each visiting teacher if she knows her new companion. If not, offer to introduce her.
• Ask each visiting teacher if she knows all the sisters on her route. If not, offer to introduce them.
• When making lots of changes, be sure to point out the telephone number of the District Leader or Visiting Teaching Coordinator at the top of the new route so that sisters know to whom they report.
• It may help to have the person the sisters report to (a VT Supervisor, VT Coordinator, etc.) pass out changes so that you can emphasize who needs to receive reports.
• All wards do it differently, but in this ward, our RS President calls VTers before she makes changes to their routes to see if they have something special going on with a sister before they are moved. Some sisters are able to get into homes that others can't, and changing those routes could cause problems.
• When a huge upheaval is called for, some units write the names of all visiting teachers and a second list of all sisters on colored paper with magnetic strips on the back. Then they rearrange the whole list on a church chalkboard (they're magnetic). It's easier than trying to work it out on paper and helps keep you from leaving someone out.
• Consider time and distance. If a Visiting Teacher works days and is with a companion that doesn't always come with her, would she be required to travel a long distance after dark to make visits?
• Don't worry if something doesn't work out with an assignment. No route will ever be perfect. Consult with your presidency, VT leader, and Bishop and to make any changes. It really does get easier over time.
• I find I make changes to about 20% of routes every 3 months due to move-ins and schedule changes.

Forms/Reporting

• The list we are supposed to print for Visiting Teaching Supervisors/Coordinators is "Companionships by District". The problem is, that list does not include contact information for the sisters in each route. But here's a trick I learned: if you print out the page for "Enter Visiting Teaching Contacts" for each district
  (using the pull down menus to select district and by companionship), you'll get a list that has each
  Visiting Teacher's telephone number and the phone numbers of the sisters they visit. This way your VT District Supervisors don't have to hunt for phone numbers. We print this section, cut off the bottom section titled "Sisters Not Assigned to be Taught" for privacy reasons, since it has personal information that isn't really necessary for Supervisors to have, and distribute that list to supervisors. Using that page makes it much easier for supervisors to make their calls.