Welcome to Closer to Christ Through Conference, where two friends who love Jesus share their
own approach to general conference.
So today's talk is going to be Pray He Is There.
This was done by President Susan H. Porter, general primary president, which was made
obvious when she said she was speaking to the children, especially.
Love that.
The Spirit confirmed her she was supposed to be talking to the children.
So let's recap the talk just by way of reminder if you haven't re-listened to that one just
yet.
I invite you to pray to know Heavenly Father is there.
Pray to grow to become like him and pray to show his love to others.
And she starts with, I want to talk to you about a very special gift that Heavenly Father
has given to you to help you.
It is the gift of prayer.
What a blessing prayer is.
We can talk to Heavenly Father anytime, anywhere.
She definitely used simple, more childlike verbiage.
But for me, right when I was listening to it just before we started filming again, I
was like, my ears are always ready to listen when you're going to be talking to a child
because it's a level that I'm totally ready for.
Simplicity.
And then also, because I'm in the midst of raising children, I'm like, how is she going
to approach this important topic of prayer to introduce this?
Your kids might be wild and crazy and doing Play-Doh and building Legos and eating their
snacks and jumping off the wall.
And then when she says, I'm going to talk to the children, maybe their ears perk up
a little bit.
And if anything, they get from conference in that moment, is this talk.
Totally.
Great foundation to talk about prayer.
So she's going to talk about these three things.
She's going to hit them pretty hard.
And so the first one she talks about to pray to know.
What did you think about that, Amy?
So this is something that she said.
When you know that Heavenly Father is real and that he loves you, you can live with courage
and hope.
Pray he is there, speak he is listening.
Love that part.
She referenced the song.
President Nelson has invited you to pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father and then
listen, which was in his 2018 talk.
Listen to what you feel in your heart and to thoughts that come to your mind.
And then in the footnote, this is the talk, President Nelson's talk, Revelation for the
Church, Revelation for our lives.
What will your seeking open for you?
What wisdom do you lack?
What do you feel an urgent need to know or understand?
Follow the example of the Prophet Joseph.
Find a quiet place where you can regularly go.
Humble yourself before God.
Pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father.
Turn to him for answers and for comfort.
And then I love this part.
He says, he says, pray in the name of Jesus Christ about your concerns, your fears, your
weaknesses.
And then he says, yes, the very longings of your heart.
And then listen, write the thoughts that come to your mind.
Record your feelings and follow through with actions that you are prompted to take.
As you repeat this process day after day, month after month, year after year, you will
grow into the principle of revelation.
This may have been before where it was spelled out so explicitly, like so step by step.
It may have, but this is the time that really caught hold in my heart.
And I took every bit of this and turned it into my own process.
And it has absolutely changed my life.
I love, love that he has that.
Is there anything specific you can point out that like sort of a version of what you were
doing and then what it's made you do?
I actually think you already answered this.
I totally have multiple times.
Well, in the last episode, just in the very last episode, when you recognize that it was
an impression by the prophet to grow your own testimony, that that was done by trial
and through experiences, but through prayer.
Yes.
And you know, I just feel like too, that he said it in a specific way when he said, um,
you know, all the things you can talk about, your concerns, your fears, your weaknesses,
the longings of your heart.
And this is the part I love.
He said, and then listen, write the thoughts that come to your mind because it may have
been said a different way.
And it didn't click with my mind in my heart that the thoughts that came to my mind were
the answer to the prayer.
I thought it might have to be a certain way or feel a certain way or hear a, you know,
a voice.
But he said, write the thoughts that come to your heart after you've prayed, after
you found a quiet place, after you've been humble.
It just like, I just feel like he, for me, almost spiritually created this beautiful
place that would look like when I prayed and sought personal revelation.
And I just kind of walked inside of it and became like that became part of me.
So I loved it.
He was very just step by step.
I appreciate that.
I appreciate it too, and I'm just sitting here reflecting on this conversation and thinking,
I put maybe too much importance and effort into the how my child prays.
You know, we thank him for things before we ask for things and we try not to be so repetitive,
like if we kind of get into the same prayer on the meal or whatever.
And from like multiple episodes back, like you talked about Adam asking for specific
things to pray with your family about trying to incorporate that it's a ministering opportunity.
So a lot of that happening last week, like as a group, these family units are trying
to bond and get closer together and they were creating these like notes list.
And so whoever was in charge of the prayer that night was definitely praying on behalf
of multiple situations going on as a group collectively.
And I thought, what a neat thing.
So that's a how to pray.
What's the limit on what you can ask for?
You know, how do you communicate with them?
How formal is it?
How do you visualize?
Like Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ.
As we're praying, like, you know, that's a thing.
And as you were talking, I was thinking, am I as good at like I know that I teach my kids
a lesson that he hears those person, he will answer them.
But it's a learning skill of like, where that silent time is going to come in that you're
going to allow the answers to come from the prayers or knowing that some of them aren't
going to be like immediately after you rise off your knees or, you know, if you're asking
for like your stuffy, something to be found, like you sit there and wait for it to land
in your lap, like what action comes from it.
So there's like multiple pieces of what we can do as parents to create this relationship
they can have in that in prayer.
I totally agree.
You definitely maybe reconsider like where I'm at on that.
I can teach them while they're in the safety of our home.
And it's not just you can pray anytime, anywhere, anyhow, whatever that that kind of model to
and then what how like how ready are you to receive the answer to the prayer that you've
just offered?
Right?
Like you said, and then listen, and you're like, Oh, shoot, but then I said, just write
down the thoughts that come to your mind.
You're like, I can do that.
I can do that.
I was praying over my children.
I was going to be gone last week.
And my more fearful daughter, she she had girls camp coming up and she was nervous about it.
And so first time, yeah.
So we had a prayer together and I was like, she a blessing from her father would be very
valuable.
And then because of your your like lessons to me, I recorded I typed it up for her to
carry with her.
So she had her dad's words.
Like she had the best time at camp and I knew she would but that's because I have the perspective
of knowing, you know, what the experience is gonna be like for her.
And I just knew she was just really anxious about whatever.
So that was that was good.
But what if we'd had this prayer together and she'd had she'd had the impression rather
than me like, would you I said, like, would you like I didn't tell her you have to have
a blessing for your dad, I suggested, would you like a blessing from your dad?
If I have if I was, if this had sunk into my heart, you know, more like last week than
I'd say we'd pray together and then I would say from our prayer, was there anything that
you could think of that would be helpful?
And if she didn't come to the idea of a blessing immediately to ask for that, then as a mom,
I certainly could help her like look at that as an option.
But how cool would that have been if she'd be like a blessing would be good.
So we can always learn.
I think you did awesome.
How do you always learn?
I feel good about where we got to in the end.
And she had an awesome experience like I knew she would.
But very cool.
Love this.
I love it when somebody talks to children because I'm a child and this resonated with
me.
I feel the same way.
In the eternal scheme of things.
I'm young.
Okay.
So just to make sure that we've answered the question, what are some ways that we can
pray to know like as the first point of this talk?
Yes.
Sometimes you may want to know why something I love this part.
And I've heard this over and over now.
It's been in two talks consecutively.
She says sometimes you may want to know why something hard is happening in your life or
why you didn't receive a blessing you prayed for.
And then this is it.
Often the best question to ask Heavenly Father is not why, but what Heavenly Father will
guide you when you ask him what you can do and what you can learn.
Huge.
What is so huge?
It's actually like a springboard rather than why is just kind of like a, but there's a
wall in front of you and you just hit it.
You know what I'm saying?
It's kind of an angry way to approach the trials that come our way.
Agreed.
When we all kind of know that those trials are the growing periods and that we're going
to get something amazing out on the end of it.
As we're learning in the middle of it, maybe we can feel the joy of the learning in the
middle of it.
But most of us get to the end of the trial and we're like, oh man, that really grew me
in this way.
Yes.
You change it to what?
It feels like you're inviting him to...
Using agency.
You're using your agency to invite him to resolve, allow him, the atonement of Jesus Christ,
to play their fair share in helping you through.
Totally.
Then it doesn't really feel that burdensome.
No.
It's very important.
We did some skill development on this last week and it was like, they would just present
like, why did this happen to me?
And then they would rephrase that question and to find the power in what steps could
be taken when they turned it to the what.
Yeah.
What can I learn?
I didn't know that it came from this talk.
There's another one too.
I know.
Who was it?
It is Piper, Elder Piper.
It's the next one I'm doing.
Trust in the Lord.
So it's coming out.
Yes.
So it was just a really heavy, heavy message, this conference.
And are they referencing something, Prophet, if you look on the footnote?
I'm always like, oh, that's where...
Are they like echoing and reverberating?
I'll look again.
Yeah.
Because I mean, it's definitely the better way to go.
That is an action item.
It's like Sandberg's cheer in the beginning of the talk.
But if something is going on in your life and you feel inclined to ask why, if you write
the why down and then you rephrase it and you put it into a what, that's a power statement.
It is for sure.
It's like the best step to resolving whatever's going on.
Not only that, but what can I learn from it?
Because the what you get to take with you into your next challenge.
Yeah.
The why.
The why is like a...
Means nothing.
Yeah.
Like you just put yourself in neutral and then you're just angry.
Totally.
And it's not to say that we haven't each put ourselves in the why, but I mean...
It just doesn't get you anywhere.
Yeah.
If you want to go somewhere, ask the what.
If you're happy, just...
If you're feeling good right now, just being in the why, that's totally fine.
And...
Sit there for a minute, but there's a way out and it's with the what.
It's true.
So next part of the talk talked about how we can pray to grow.
Do you want to grow in patience or honesty?
Do you want to grow in a skill?
Maybe you're shy and want to grow in courage.
Pray he is there.
Through his spirit, your heart can change and you can receive strength.
So that was kind of this little take home snippet.
What experience can you share with us on maybe how you've applied the process of praying
to grow?
Thank you, Abby.
You know what?
I can look back.
I think it's been about eight years now of my life, which that's kind of a lot, but yeah,
since we moved, made our first big move.
And we have been out of our comfort zone practically the entire time.
We've done something new every single year and that has brought growth.
We prayed for growth and then we've had, then we followed gentle nudges from the spirit
when we felt to move forward.
And if we pray from this is how I feel.
If we pray from the beginning and then also along the way with our desire to gain experience
for us and for our children, we contrasted the opportunities placed in our path that
feel right to follow will bring us our desired destination.
So this is something that happened.
Now it's been for four and a half years.
So it was right after the very week that I ended cancer treatments.
I spoke at a lightkeepers convention or yeah, convention at Roots Tech.
What's lightkeepers?
You think you maybe mentioned it in a previous.
It was a family history for women.
Awesome.
And it was fantastic.
Loved it.
And this is what I wrote in my journal.
You were called to that, right?
Like you had a missionary tag for best service.
Yes, I was a family search, social media missionary.
Yeah.
And you're still in the gospel library app with that information.
I don't know if I am, but my companions are.
Yeah.
Well, let's look while you're talking.
So this is what I wrote in my journal at the time.
Saturday night after speaking at lightkeepers, I wanted to fall into bed victorious and sleep
like a tranquilized elephant.
Instead, I thought of the looming mountains that are next to climb and I geared up as
I lay in bed and prayed for strength to climb these next mountains that there were three
in particular.
As I thought about them, I felt the Lord whisper, what if they're all the same mountain?
I know that God is a multiplier.
He multiplies and consecrates our efforts.
Why not have all the desires of my heart wrapped into one project, one great work?
I told God I didn't see how I could have the bandwidth to conquer cancer treatments
and also climb the next mountain.
Because at this point, I wasn't sure if I was going to start another round.
That's how it always went.
I would finally finish one and I would start another one again.
So I didn't know if I had the bandwidth to continue cancer treatments and also climb
the next mountain, but if he thought I could, then I asked for strength and then I fell
asleep.
Then I will tell you one mountain is that we felt compelled to buy a lodge in another
state and it had 12 acres, 12 tiny cabins on a mountainside and a river ran through
it.
I will just say that that was one of the things that like I said, if we're talking to the
Lord and we're working with him, then he is going to consecrate all of the things that
we're doing.
And it has been that way.
All the things that I wanted to do that I wanted for my family and for my children,
it kind of has been all one big mountain.
They're all the same.
I think that's pretty cool, right?
Like one of them-
It's cool on the side of it.
Yeah, right.
It is so overwhelming, but also because I took a moment to look, I will share this really
quick thing that I didn't know at the time.
My parents have been in church service for, they were in it for like 17 years of my married
life, 15 years.
I forget what it's been.
It's been a lot and I didn't see them a bunch.
They were always gone, right?
They were always at different parts of the world and buying this place with the cabins,
they decided to come, we live in a very hot area in Arizona, and they decided to come
up to Wyoming for the summers.
And I just, I can't even tell you the joy that it brings to my heart that we had a place
where my parents, they didn't feel like a burden because they're not staying in my
house.
They're just in a tiny cabin that's literally a few steps from my house.
You know what I mean?
But I feel like the Lord has given me a compensatory blessing for their service and now I get to
see him way more than I did for those years that they were in service.
It's all but made up for it.
I could never say, heavenly father, you took my parents from me.
I feel like he's more than made up for it.
And I never would have dreamed in my life that my parents would have summered at my
place, that my little boy can jump into our side by side and go take granny an egg because
she needs it or whatever it is.
The Lord has totally, he's made good on that promise.
Nicole And not that you're not enough reason to
attract siblings to the area, but two siblings have chosen to eventually get out of here.
Amy Lovell Yeah, they will have a place here at some
point.
Nicole I love that.
That's a great way, that's a great recognition of the compensatory blessing from the sacrifice
because it was worth just the sacrifice for the sacred sacrifice.
I actually got to listen to a podcast that Amy's dad did just recently on another podcast
and it was amazing to think of the years of service that he put in.
Because I'm not the one that sacrificed my father, grandfather, whatever, to the service
of the Lord, it's probably not fair for me to have this opinion about it.
But I thought, if each of the siblings thought back to the blessings, if they look back and
think where they're at in their life right now financially or the little decisions that
they've made along their path, that maybe they can recognize that as compensatory blessing
also because they definitely didn't have to give up grandma and granny for many, many
years consecutive.
Nicole Right, because the Lord's a multiplier.
He can make that happen.
Amy Lovell He is a multiplier.
I love it.
And really, when you think about the blessings of all the lands that they touched and the
work that they did, it's like you can't even put a number to how many lives they touched
because you were willing to sacrifice that loved one.
So if I heard you right, basically, when you pray to grow, plan on a trial coming your
way.
Is that what I heard?
Nicole That's a challenge.
He's going to give you the tools to make it happen, right?
Amy Lovell Well, that's the great thing.
Nicole They don't just grow.
Amy Lovell When it doesn't feel like you can conquer
that mountain by yourself, you got a good hiking buddy if you involve him, if you use
your agency to invite him along.
He'll carry the pack too.
It's great.
It's nice of him.
All right.
Should we jump to the third piece of this talk?
Nicole Sounds great.
Amy Lovell So it was prayed to show you can pray for
help to show Heavenly Father's love to others.
Oh, that's great.
Nicole I know, huh?
Amy Lovell Well, and I kind of thought it was by no
coincidence that it was...
Nicole Susan Porter?
Amy Lovell Well, no, the steps of it.
You need to pray to know the truth of something for yourself.
It's like when you're on an airplane and if the cabin pressure changes, you fix your own
mask and then you would help the person adjacent to you.
Nicole Totally.
Amy Lovell So to be able to share any light, you need
to have the light yourself.
Then because you trust in the process and you know God's word and you know the plan
that's been put in play for us, then you can approach opportunities to grow just like you
were talking about, being able to look past multiple years of experiences and what seemed
hard and insurmountable and what blessings you're reaping from that hard sacrifice in
this moment in your life.
Beautiful.
So then we're on to pray to show.
Now is our opportunity to take the love we feel for ourselves and try to influence others
to feel that same love.
Nicole Susan Love that.
Amy Lovell So what thoughts can you say?
Nicole Susan She had some points that...
And I just loved them.
Through His Spirit, Heavenly Father will help you notice someone who is sad.
Remember, she's speaking to children, who is sad so you can comfort them.
He can help you show His love by forgiving someone.
He can give you courage to serve someone and share with them that they are a child of God.
Those who are praying for blessings for your family and others you love, don't give up.
Heavenly Father will show you what you can do.
Amy Lovell What is the example of her little granddaughter
that was feeling alone on the playground in this particular section?
Because I wasn't looking at it in print.
Nicole Susan It was either a friend or a granddaughter,
yes.
Amy Lovell It was her granddaughter.
I just don't know if it was in this, but she kneels down to pray and tells Heavenly Father
that she's lonely.
She opens her eyes and a schoolmate her same age is like right in front of his face.
And so what a neat thing to experience that.
Especially this granddaughter is like, we told the story to grandma and it's like as
a grandma, you're just like loving that kid that just stopped and answered the call.
So the granddaughter was, her blessing was answered, but like maybe the little girl that
came to her side had prayed like, help me.
Maybe she also needed a friend and she saw this gal.
She's like, oh, she's praying and I pray.
I don't know all the details of it, but it's interesting to think like maybe how he answered
that little girl's prayer by finding, by answering this other little girl's prayer.
He has this perspective that he can make this magic happen in any way that he can think
of.
But I don't know, you emphasize some great things from the talk, like just right from
her talk, but any personal experiences you want to share about the prayer to show?
Nicole Susan Yes.
Amy Lovell So it's interesting because I firmly believe
that when we opt into praying for someone, we unlock blessings for heaven.
And the thing that's funny, Abby, is we worked on this talk before I looked at the words
for how the words matter and I looked back at President Nelson's words.
He's the one that said this thing.
So I love it.
Nicole Susan So was it footnoted in here or they were just
like echoing the words of the prophet?
Amy Lovell It wasn't footnoted, just when I was studying
I was like, that's where I found it.
He said when you pray for someone, you like are receiving direct, like you're, he didn't
say these words, but it was the same principle.
We unlock blessings from heaven.
The specific blessing is that God shares with us how he feels about this person.
This whole principle was taught by him.
We are blessed with a portion of his love for them.
He also blesses us with a glimpse.
This is how I feel.
He blesses us with a glimpse into their life's path and potential.
That's happened to me multiple times and I've been overcome and overwhelmed with love
for this person.
And I've just seen a quick, and I mean just a glimpse.
It's not like I get this whole, you know, vision or whatever it is of their life, but
I just get a quick glimpse and I'm like, oh, it's like a little spark and I see,
I see how this is going to work.
And I see that he's answering that prayer.
And honestly, if we hadn't opted into praying for someone, I feel like we don't have, we're
not using our agency.
And so he's not blessing us with that.
But as soon as we do, as soon as someone has the sometimes vulnerability to ask for a very
specific prayer, we then get that blessing too.
And I feel like that's something that is very celestial.
Through the Holy Ghost, I've come to recognize this extra blessing as I pray for others.
This becomes a blessing for me as well, as I'm filled with a portion, which feels overwhelming
to me, of God's love and his eternal perspective on this person.
This is one way that prayer truly is a gift from God, just like Sister Porter calls it.
Don't be so emotional, like maybe I'll have it, I'm just thinking back to last week and
a prayer that I started the week with was just to have eyes to recognize the one.
But I just want to bear testimony that when you have that prayer in your heart, that you'll
have eyes to see, and you know, Heavenly Father's children, and because we're His hands, you
have the opportunity to answer somebody's prayer, maybe a prayer unspoken, like maybe
you're answering the prayer of the mother that like dragged their kid to FSY, or maybe
somebody came willingly, but they came with like a burning question on their heart.
If you open up, just want to testify just to what you said, if I did have the prayer
to be able to minister to the one, find the one, reach the one, and I can't even share
the experiences, they're too numerous to count.
And when He answers the prayer to allow you to reach the one, it just testifies to you
that others that are praying to reach the one, when you're the one that's in need,
He's just as mindful as you.
You don't have to have your prayers answered to fill, to be able to gain that testimony
that He does answer them through other people.
I'm not really articulating the feelings of my heart here.
Nicole Sade I mean, I feel like I'm understanding what
you're saying, that it works on both sides, at both ends, and when you look for the one,
then you realize, oh, He loves me that much too.
And when He gives you the direction to do this plain and simple thing, it means nothing.
It's like a gesture that doesn't mean that much to you.
And He makes that happen.
It does require them to maybe say to you like, oh, that thing that you said matter to me
because of this reason.
So you kind of have to get the follow up from them.
You don't really know that it's like the one that you meant to reach out to is the one
that you meant to reach out to.
But when you do get those glimpses of those perfect moments happening, it's just another
testament that He's as mindful of you as He is of them.
He gives you the ability to bless somebody else.
So I guess what I'm saying is the opportunity to serve others in the name of His Son, Jesus
Christ is such a beautiful gift to know how much He cares about each one of us.
I agree, Abby, real quick while you were talking, it's funny because – not funny, it's interesting
because you said your prayer was to look for the one.
And that is what President Nelson has asked us to do for his birthday.
Exactly.
This is why it came up.
I know that's the birthday theme and that was just a big piece of – we should reiterate
that birthday wish because it's coming up in September.
He's 99 and he's turning.
Look for the one, reach out for the one, be a peacemaker, forgive someone, all of that.
This is what I loved about what you said.
I remember this as I was looking through all of the words that President Nelson has taught,
which is to turn us to Jesus Christ.
It's not to gain like fan-domain over him.
No, not about him.
Not at all.
It's not about him.
He's turning us to Jesus Christ.
This is what I felt over and over and over, that to the extent we receive the teachings
of our prophet, to the extent that we receive them and then put them into work in our lives,
is the extent that we allow God to bless us in that thing.
So the way you're speaking that is like the words that he spoke to you, the ones that
you've kind of reflected back on over the four years on like knowing for yourself the
testimony.
Totally.
It's just not a good excuse to have anger or turmoil about anything that's being spoken
because they've never asked us to take it just at face value and just to trust them.
I do trust everything that they say, but it's because I let the Spirit confirm that to me,
not just because I…
Right, because he said that.
He said it, so I'm just going to have to make that right in me.
Sometimes it takes a minute, sometimes it takes a second, sometimes it takes a week.
I'm not putting a timeline on things, but basically if I am feeling unsettled about
one thing, I already approach that with the fact that I know that I will be given the
right pieces to reconcile that.
I will find truths that I already know and then add them to other truths that I already
know to eventually understand the truth that they're trying to teach me that I'm not
ready to reconcile yet.
About that, yes.
I don't know.
That's like a lot of cyclical talk, but I guess at the end of the day, we just testify
that it's so important to start with that first step.
If there's something, if there's a gospel principle that's being taught that you're
not reconciled with, that's your first step.
Find that thing that you're needing to have further confirmation of and don't just trust
the words of the prophet.
Know that you can come to know those things for yourself through the Spirit.
Absolutely.
And then what was the second one?
Would be to pray to grow.
There may be a spiritual gift or something that needs to come into play to reconcile
that.
It could be something totally unrelated.
I don't know.
And then the third one, pray to show.
What can you do to show Heavenly Father's children that you're there to love them?
Be His hands.
We'll put our questions in, but the biggest one for this is instead, like the biggest
paradigm shift, I guess, is instead of praying and asking why, is to pray and ask, what can
I learn from this?
What is my part in this?
And he'll tell you.
It'd take a minute to reflect, like, is there questions weighing on your mind and you're
stuck and are you asking it in a why format and could you restructure it and make it a
lot?
Right?
Just change one word.
It is really one word.
It is.
Thanks so much for being here today.
We've loved talking about this.
We could talk about it forever.
We hope that you talk with your friends about it, with your family about it, and that it
fuses a fire in you, like it has for us.
We love the gospel.
We love Jesus Christ.
We'll catch you guys next time.
See ya.
I hate crying.