Open Your Mouth! - Just don't jinx yourself...

 During this past week, I have been trying to focus on teaching first and foremost by the Spirit. During my lessons with my "investigators," I have often felt rather panicked in the process of frantically trying to understand what the investigator is telling us and how in the world to answer them. Due to this stress, the Spirit has sometimes felt less present than I would have liked. At one point during our normal class activities, one of my instructors said something to the effect of "It's more important to speak with the Spirit than it is to speak perfect or even really good Tagalog." I have tried to take these words to heart, and have noticed some awesome blessings as a result. Instead trying to cram as much input and output Tagalog into my brain as possible during the lesson, I have been focusing on keeping a continual prayer for guidance and power through the Spirit in my heart and mind instead. As I've practiced this skill, I truly have felt a huge increase in the Spirit witnessing of the truths that Elder Wilder and I are sharing. At one point, I swear the feeling just about blasted me out of my chair. Additionally, my Tagalog really hasn't gotten any worse during the lessons either, so I suppose I'm really supposed to learn to trust in God to guide my words, instead of coming up with everything myself. Not something that I'm necessarily used to or good at, but something that I definitely want to continue working on. Besides, God is much better at speaking to the heart than I am.

 Last Sunday, the new leadership assignments were being given, and lo and behold Elder Wilder and I are now our Zone Leaders. (We completely jinxed ourselves over that one. Should have kept our mouths closed...) Since my district was the only one not leaving, everyone therein received a leadership assignment of some kind, so we have all suddenly acquired more responsibilities, which have proven to be both challenging and a blessing. Monday through Wednesday morning, we were saying goodbye to the members of our zone who were headed out into the field. This was really a pretty sad experience for me, since I very likely won't be seeing any of them again (none were headed to my same mission) and I really liked all of them. There were many hugs exchanged (only with the Elders) and somehow Elder Wilder and I ended up with absolutely copious amounts of snacks as the leaving missionaries tried to get rid of all their perishable food at once. I'll miss all the departed missionaries a lot, but I'm so happy they get to go out and fulfill their purpose as missionaries of the Lord!

Wednesday afternoon, my district had the opportunity to host brand new missionaries incoming to the   MTC, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I got to know three new people, one of which turned out to be in my zone. Thankfully none of the Elders I hosted had a 100 lb suitcase, which was apparently a problem for Elder Wilder. Wednesday  evening, we were in charge of giving an orientation presentation to the almost 40 new missionaries in our zone. The meeting actually went over quite well despite it both the presenters and the listeners being quite pagod (tired). This morning, we were able to take the new missionaries to the Provo temple for the first time, which was extremely nice after the many preceding moments of craziness. Despite all of the running around Elder Wilder and I have had to do with our new responsibilities, I have enjoyed getting to know my new zone members little by little. I can remember most of their (last) names now, and I'm looking forward to getting to spend more time with them. They have been pretty obedient and easy to work with thus far, so I really have been blessed in that way.


  As I've pondered on the best way to try and help and support these new missionaries, I've realized that it is going to require me getting out of my comfort zone, talking to people more that I normally might and really trying to get to know each of them as much as possible. As a somewhat quiet and calm person by nature, this is not exactly one of my strong suits. But I know that as a missionary, central to my purpose is helping, loving and uplifting others, especially those whom I am supposed to lead. So I have committed to open my mouth, even when I'm tired or don't really want to try and chat. I definitely won't be perfect at it, but I'm going to try my very best. Likewise, I know that each of you have people in your life who are in need of your personal helping, loving and uplifting influence. You have so much potential to do good, and I would hate for any of that potential to go unused. So I invite you to talk to everyone you can; take time to talk, be friendly and be kind. If you do this, I know the Lord will bless you for your efforts to follow His example in loving all of God's children.
    
Thank you for any and all prayers and good thoughts that have been sent my way. I hope you each have a wonderful week! 

Love, Elder Dickison