Open Your Mouth

“Open Your Mouth” (OYM) is the missionary-finding practice Kyle draws from Law of the Harvest. The book argues that what separates great missionaries from poor ones is their finding program, not their teaching program — and that finding is the bottleneck, so the answer is simply to open your mouth. The practical unit is one gospel conversation (“OYM”) per day. The barrier is fear (73% of surveyed members), but Kyle’s note reframes the fear as misplaced: “We don’t OYM… because we’re afraid we’ll say the wrong thing when in reality non-members just want to see that we are good people.” This dovetails with the book’s finding that what nonmembers actually value is righteous example, not articulate explanation (only 2% cited that), and its claim that “the selection process is to occur in the heart of the hearer and not in the mind of the sharer” — reach everyone and let God sort acceptance, because “the world is not ‘fished out’: we simply aren’t doing much fishing.”

Context: “Open your mouth” derives from scriptural injunctions in the Doctrine and Covenants (e.g. D&C 33:8–10, 60:2–3); “OYM” is common shorthand in Latter-day Saint missionary culture for initiating a gospel conversation.

Where this appears

• Law of the Harvest — finding (not teaching) is the bottleneck; “OYM” per day as the practical unit, with fear as the real barrier and good example as what nonmembers actually want.