Prayer

Hi everyone! It feels like summer on Temple Square! It's hot today, just below 90, and it feels great. Yesterday Sister Bat-ulzii and I ate dinner just outside of the Church Office Building and enjoyed the beauty of the day. We had a great time. Missionary work at Temple Square is also moving along. On Sunday Sister Bat-ulzii called Amy* who a former investigator of some missionaries in the Salt Lake City mission to re-invite her to meet with missionaries. Sister Bat-ulzii did a wonderful job talking with her and helping Amy feel comfortable and loved. She learned that Amy is in high school and everyone in her family is a member of the church except for her. She stopped meeting with the missionaries, though, because she was scared of the commitment that baptism is. Amy said that she would like to meet with the missionaries again so Sister Bat-ulzii set up a time to call her again the next day (yesterday) so that we could teach her a little. Yesterday morning as we were planning for Amy I felt like perhaps we should teach her about her relationship with her Heavenly Father. Once you understand who you truly are, then it helps in all sorts of areas of your life. When we called we told her that she is a daughter of Heavenly Father and that He knows her and loves her. I asked her what it means to her to know that she is a daughter of God and she told us that she had never thought about it like that before. She realized that she is important to Heavenly Father. We read Alma 18:32 and we taught her about prayer. She is so important to her Heavenly Father that He wants to hear from her how she is doing and so we can pray to him. We told her that Heavenly Father doesn't only hear prayers, but he answers them too and that is usually through the Spirit. So at the end of the phone call we invited her to pray. She was a little nervous, but we told her that if she got stuck we could help. She said the most sincere and heart-felt prayer that I have ever heard a investigator offer on my mission. Growing up in a member household she had learned the language of prayer: thee, thou, thy, etc. but it wasn't the eloquence of the prayer that was significant, it was the Spirit that gave her a big embrace as she was saying it. Tears came to her eyes as she spoke with her Father and she knew that He was there. We told her that the feeling she had was the Spirit and it was Heavenly Father telling her that He loves her. That experience with Amy reminded me of a phrase in the Bible Dictionary about prayer: "As soon as we learn the true relationship in which we stand toward God (namely, God is our Father, and we are his children), then at once prayer becomes natural and instinctive on our part." I know that Heavenly Father hears AND answers prayers because he loves each one of you and because you are His child. What a blessing to be able to call on our Father whenever we need Him. We also taught Debora* this week over the phone. Her son is a member and lives in Utah and he referred her when he came to Temple Square for General Conference. She told us that as she has been talking with her son and reading more about the basic beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints she had found that her interest has increased and she feels like this is something that she should be doing right now. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and how she can know for herself that it is true. At the end of the phone call we invited her to pray and she said a beautiful and heartfelt prayer. I love the sincerity of people who are sincerely seeking to know their Father in heaven. Remember that family from Las Vegas that I told you about a few weeks ago? Well we also talked with her this week. The missionaries in Las Vegas contacted her and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon and were coming back the next day! We shared a scripture with her from the Book of Mormon about the mothers of the Army of Helaman and how they were key in the success and faith of those young men. She talked about how she wanted to be baptized, so hopefully those missionaries in Las Vegas are doing their job! We're going to call her tomorrow and see how she is doing. *I changed their names