The boundaries of the ward I grew up in recently changed, and friends and family who are still in the neighborhood will be attending church activities and meetings in a different building.
When my mom shared the news, I felt a little sad. I’ve been thinking about the lessons I learned in that building ever since.
Before I moved to the neighborhood, I attended sacrament meeting there with my grandmother every Christmas. In the years since I moved there, I played basketball in the carpeted gym countless times. I attended Sunday school classes, priesthood quorum meetings, merit badge classes, family history classes, ordination services, and funerals in that meetinghouse. There I cooked, cleaned, shoveled snow, and vacuumed.
And almost every time I walked through that door, I learned something about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
One example that comes to mind is when the first president of the Bountiful Utah Temple spoke in a ward sacrament meeting after it opened in 1995. Harold Yancey spoke as assigned and shared his testimony of prayer.
President Yancey, who would have turned 100 this year, would have read the same scriptures and said the same words my parents said to me so many times when I was young. But I remember lifting my head, which was resting on the pew in front of me, and hearing his words for the first time in that moment, as if they were speaking to me alone.
He spoke respectfully of his call to his Heavenly Father. He talked about how Heavenly Father actively listens to us and how we need to actively listen after we pray. He spoke of blessings for which we are truly grateful, not just what we hear others say in prayer. And we talked about asking only for other blessings that we really care about.
That day, my prayers took a step forward.
A month ago, I had the unique opportunity to listen to President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, pray at the burial of the late President Jeffrey R. Holland.
I share these observations with his permission in the hope that my learning from this moment will also help others in their efforts to pray with more faith.
President Uchtdorf spoke to Heavenly Father expressing love, gratitude, and humility. He acknowledged that God is the creator of the universe, this earth, and the community from which the Dutch president comes. And we thanked our Heavenly Father for including among us the President of the Netherlands, who grew from humble, small-town roots.
President Uchtdorf thanked Heavenly Father for giving the President of the Netherlands a gift that he then shared as he ministered to people around the world and sought to draw them closer to the Savior.
While this prayer was personal to President Uchtdorf, it also felt like it represented the thoughts and feelings of the many people who knew and loved the Dutch president.
Later, someone who attended the funeral asked if the prayer could be published in the church news. We do not do such things except during temple dedication prayers.
The Bible contains many teachings about prayer, but we don’t read much about actual prayer. And the most sacred things were mentioned but not recorded.
President Uchtdorf’s prayer embodied much of the Bible’s teachings from previous prophets of God and the Savior himself.
In it, we pray with gratitude despite adversity. As President Dallin H. Oaks taught in April 2003 general conference, we are grateful for adversity and pray for the growth that comes from it.
“We should thank God for our adversity and pray for guidance in meeting it. Through attitude, faith, and obedience, we fulfill the promises God has given us. It is all part of the plan. … Let us be thankful for who we are and the circumstances God has provided for our personal journey in mortality,” President Oaks said.
As I strive to improve my prayers, I am grateful for the example and teachings of prophets and apostles who dedicated their lives to serving our Heavenly Father and testifying to the Savior in every act and prayer.
— John Ryan Jensen is the editor of Church News.
