Elder Tyson Dawson: Week 42 in the Field - Zone Leader, Elder Jepson, and the Holy Ghost

Weekly Letter August 10, 2015

Hey guys, I hope everyone has had a great week, I certainly have. This week I had changes but fortunately I stayed in the same zone and just went up as Zone Leader. My new area is called Lo de Fuentes and it's right next to my old area, Minerva. It's so close in facts, that we go to the same chapel on Sundays. I get to see my converts in church still which is really cool.

My companion is Elder Jepson from Midway, Utah. He just has six more weeks than I do in the mission and he's a fantastic companion. He's been a Zone Leader for only 3 months so we're both really new at this and have a lot of ideas to implement in the zone an in our companionship. As a Zone Leader you have very little supervison because you practically are the supervision, so we have a lot of freedom in how we want to work as a zone to see a lot of success. This change (six weeks) we will be focusing on Family Home Evenings with investigators and members, ward lists, maps, and member references.

Elder Jepson is really easy-going. He's 24 years old and he waited to go on a mission so that he could go at the same time with his two brothers. All three left on the same day, one to Monterrey, Mexico: one to Santa Ana, El Salvador; and one to the Guatemala City East Mission. Elder Jepson is always smiling and taking pictures, has a great understanding of the gospel, has a great attitude, and wants to work in the smartest, most efficient way possible. In short, he's an amazing companion and he doesn't think he's above me so we are truly working as equals.

In other news, my investigator from Minerva, Mariela, will be baptized on Wednesday. Now whenever she is taught she'll say things like "I really liked that, I'll be sure to use that example when I go on my mission." She really has a desire to be baptized and to progress in the church, go to the temple, and go on a mission. I'm usper happy for her and really glad that I will be able to be present at her baptismal service.

My new area, Lo de Fuentes, is great and we have four people preparing for baptism. This week we found two new families to teach and we are seeing an increase in confidence from the members in the ward.

I was able to study a little bit about the gift of the Holy Ghost. "The Holy Ghost," taught Spencer W. Kimball, 'is a personage of spirit and comes into our lives to lead us in the paths of righteousness." This personage of spirit helps us to develop certain Godlike qualities, and the right to his companionship and constant help is dependent upon the reception of the ordinance of confirmation and the personal worthiness, faithfulness, and righteousness of the recipient. Those who are in tune with the spirit through the compliance to such prerequisites are able to receive certain spiritual gifts which "enlighten, encourage, and edify the faithful so that they will inherit peace in this life and be guided towards eternal life in the world to come." (Bruce R. McConkie)

The companionship of the Holy Ghost and the reception of its accompanied gifts have the eternal purpose of helpingus to become more like God. Parley P. Pratt taught that "An intelligent being, in the image of God, possesses every organ, attribute, sense, sympathy, affection, that is possessed by God himself, But...these attributes are in embryo, and are to be gradually developed." Pratt continues to explain the role of the Holy Ghost is developing divine attributes, saying, "The gift of the Holy Ghost adapts itself to all these organs or attributes. It quickens all the intellectual faculties, increases, enlarges, expands, and purifies all the natural passions and affections, and adapts them, by the figt of wisdom, to their lawful use. It inspires, develops, cultivates, and matures all the fine-toned sympathies, joys, tastes, kindres feelings, and affections of our nature. It inspires virtue, kindness, goodness, tenderness, gentleness, and charity...Such is the gifts of the Holy Ghost"

My invitation would be that we accept that the words pronounced in the ordination of confirmation, "Receive the Holy Ghost," is not a passive remark but rather an active mandate. Let us purify our lives, increase our faith, and augment our personal righteousness so that we may become new creatures through the Holy Ghost.

Let your passions, brute and wild

Be tuned by spirit, meek and mild

The strings of life shall clash and din

Unless you let Him enter in

I love you all, have a great week.

--Elder Dawson