The boundaries of the ward I grew up in were recently changed, and my friends and family still in that neighborhood will now participate in Church activities and meetings in a different building.
When my mom shared the news, I was a little sad. In the days since, I’ve thought about the lessons I learned in that building.
I attended sacrament meeting there with my grandma at Christmas before we moved into the neighborhood. I played basketball for countless hours in the carpeted gym for years after we moved there. I attended Sunday School classes, priesthood quorum meetings, merit badge classes, family history classes, ordinations and funerals in that meetinghouse. I cooked and cleaned and shoveled and vacuumed there.
And I learned something about the gospel of Jesus Christ nearly every time I stepped through those doors.
One example that came to my mind was when the first president of the Bountiful Utah Temple, after it opened in 1995, spoke in our ward’s sacrament meeting. Harold Yancey spoke by assignment and shared his testimony of prayer.
President Yancey, who would have turned 100 this year, likely read the same scriptures and said the same words my parents had told me many other times during my young life. But I remember picking my head up from its resting place on the pew in front of me and hearing his words as though they had been spoken just to me, in just that moment, for the first time.
He spoke with reverence about addressing Heavenly Father. He spoke of Heavenly Father actively listening to us and how we needed to actively listen back after we prayed. He spoke of the blessings we really felt gratitude for and not just the ones we heard others say in their prayers. And he talked about asking only for other blessings that we really cared about.
My prayers took a step forward that day.
One month ago, I had the rare opportunity to hear President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as he prayed at the burial of the late President Jeffrey R. Holland.
I share these observations with his permission in the hopes that my learnings from this moment may also help others in their own efforts to pray with more faith.
President Uchtdorf addressed Heavenly Father with an expression of love, gratitude and humility. He recognized God as the Creator of the universe, of this earth and of the community where President Holland was from. And then he thanked Heavenly Father for placing President Holland among us as he grew from those humble, small-town roots.
President Uchtdorf thanked Heavenly Father for giving President Holland gifts that he then shared with individuals around the world as he ministered to them and sought to bring them closer to their Savior.
The prayer felt both personal to President Uchtdorf and as though he were representing the thoughts and feelings of many who knew and loved President Holland.
After, someone attending the funeral asked if Church News would publish the prayer. Outside of temple dedicatory prayers, we don’t do that.
In the scriptures we read a lot of teachings about prayer, but we don’t read a lot of the actual prayers. And the most sacred were mentioned but withheld from the record.
President Uchtdorf’s prayer exemplified many of the scriptural teachings from previous prophets of God and the Savior Himself.
Among them, we pray with gratitude despite adversity. As President Dallin H. Oaks taught in the April 2003 general conference, we pray with thanks for adversities and for the growth we can gain from them.
“We should thank God for our adversities and pray for guidance in meeting them. Through that attitude and through our faith and obedience, we will realize the promises God has given us. It is all part of the plan. … Let us give thanks for what we are and for the circumstances God has given us for our personal journey through mortality,” President Oaks said.
As I strive to improve my prayers, I’m grateful for the example and teachings of prophets and apostles who consecrate their lives to serving Heavenly Father and testifying of the Savior in all they do and in each prayer they offer.
— Jon Ryan Jensen is the editor of the Church News.
