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.



Forgiveness: Our burdens will be lighter

As humans we often have the tendency of have different kinds of feelings. Because this is the way God created us and we will often experience them through out our lives. We all struggle with different things in our lives. Hatred towards someone or being hurt by things people say can be like an arrow going through our chest. Since we are not perfect we sometimes hold things towards others and is difficult to let these kinds of feelings go away. In Doctrine and Covenants we read the following; "“I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (D&C 64:10). It's never too late to forgive others. Comfort and sweet peace will come to us as we forgive those people who have hurt us.

Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the twelve apostles says the following; "You may be carrying a heavy burden of feeling injured by another who has seriously offended you. Your response to that offense may have distorted your understanding so that you feel justified in waiting for that individual to ask forgiveness so that the pain can leave." I know that this is not easy and that we need to start soon because it will eat us alive if we don't take the time to forgive others. We can ask our Heavenly Father to help be able to forgive other. He will give us the strength we need to overcome and be able to forgive others.