Blessings of Prayer

  

As I was thinking on what to write about and how hard it is to sometimes think about a topic, something came up. I have truly been blessed because of the Gospel and the encouragement my parents had to teach me and my siblings. I have been a member all my life. My parents joined the church in Guatemala, both were the first ones in their families to join. Since joining the church, they have gone trough trials and tribulations just like everyone of us goes through when we try to follow the teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Every since I was little, I remember my parents teaching me principles that would help me later in life. They taught my brothers and I about sharing and loving each other, helping people, having that charity towards other people and being responsible by  making good choices. They taught us how to have faith in Jesus Christ and also being able to follow His example. They taught us to always pray and ask our Heavenly Father for help and strenght, also to give thanks to all that we have. I truly admire and am thankful for my parents for taking the time to raise us by teaching and applying these principles.

About a couple of days ago, I had an experience with a principle that I had been taught since I was little. Prayer is something so powerful and helps us to communicate with God. I think of it as talking to a family member that is really far away and is very costly if you want to visit them everyday. Traveling back and forth to see how they are doing can consume time and be costly for the long run. There is a better way and easier way to communicate with them. We can simply pick up the phone and call them. We can let them know how we are doing and also ask for help, the same can apply to them. They can let you know how they are doing and also ask you for help.

The experience that happen to us was that we were trying to get out of this hill with the car. It had snowed the day before and the road was not looking too good. At first I thought, this is gonna be easy, just push the pedal and the car will climb up the hill. It didn't work, at the beginning the car got half way and just stop and would not continue. I had to go on reverse and go all the way back to start again. We try this for like 5 or 6 times and nothing. I tough to myself, we probably gonna get stuck here forever and not being able to go to the place where we needed to go. I told my companion at that time who was Elder Maloney, to offer up a prayer. He prayed for us to be able to get out of there safely. We started again on our way. Surprisingly I felt like something was pushing us, I continue to push on the pedal until we made it all the way. I truly know that prayer works. I offered a silent prayer thanking my Heavenly Father for helping us that day. As we ask our Heavenly Father to help us, He will help us as long as we ask him and humble ourselves. I can testify as a representative of Jesus Christ that when you pray we get closer to God and He will bless you because of that.



Achieving our Goals!



Have you ever set a goal for that year, like the beggining of the year and you really want to achieve it but by the end of January something happened and you stopped or wasn't able to obtain it?...yep, that has definetly happened to me! Elder Ballard, of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles, shares some insights that can help us to be able to reach those goals.

"You must cultivate a desire to develop the skill of setting worthy and realistic goals."

We need to realize that the goals we set are not too high or low. For me, I have set goals and now that I think were too high and that's why I was not able to accomplish them. As we think about the goals that we set and push ourselves a little we will be able to accomplish. We need to have the desire as well. One scripture I like about desire is Alma 34:27 "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words."

"When you set a goal and commit yourself to the necessary self-discipline to reach that goal, you will eliminate most of the problems in your life. Spend your energies doing those things that will make a difference. We have to have faith. We have to have faith in God. We have to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And oh, how desperately we have to have faith in ourselves."

As we follow Elder Ballards's invitation, I can promise you that through Christ all things are possible and that we will be able to reach any goal that we set.