I was wondering the other day what things have worked in my life for me. As I thought about different circumstances in my life, I came to a conclusion, which is, my answers have come through doing the basic things I was taught as a child. I was taught to get on my knees and pray to my Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Ghost. I was taught to study my scriptures daily. I was taught to keep my covenants. I was taught to move forward one step at a time in faith. I was taught to love and serve my family and those around me. Have these things always been easy for me to do? No! Yet, I have found the courage to continue on doing those things.
A long time ago, when I was a teenager of 16 years of age, I made the decision not to pray for a while. I made this decision because I had heard in one of my classes at church not to say vain, repetitive prayers. I felt my prayers were very repetitive at that time so I decided the best thing for me to do was to quit praying so I would forget “my repetitiveness.” That decision, not to pray, led me down a path of bad decisions. Circumstances in my life brought me back to my knees a couple of years later and prayer has been a part of life ever since. Prayer became something that works for me in my life. To pray to a Heavenly Father, or God as many know Him, I had to believe in Him first. That belief was instilled in me from birth. I was taught by my parents, especially my mother, that Heavenly Father is very real. He is as real as my mother is, even though she has passed away. My mother taught me from the scriptures. She knelt with me every night to help establish the pattern of prayer. At first, she said both prayers. One being The Lord’s Prayer, and the other being a personal prayer. We also said family prayers. Then after so many times, I began repeating the Lord’s prayer with her until I had it memorized. Then I would say The Lord’s Prayer and she would help me with personal prayers. Eventually, I just went to offering my own personal prayers.
One might ask, what does this have to do with communication? Well, my mother taught me to communicate with my Heavenly Father daily. I needed to check in with Him. Not just once a week or once a month. I needed to check in with Him at least morning and night. Jesus Christ taught us how to pray by using The Lord’s Prayer, found in Matthew 6:9-13 KJV. Another example, of the Lord teaching us to pray is found in The Book of Mormon in 3 Nephi 19:20-21; He thanked the Father, then He expounded on why He was thanking Him and then He asked. It goes something like this: I thank Thee . . . Because . . . and I pray Thee . . . ! This is a wonderful example of how to pray to our Heavenly Father. If we want to develop our communication skills then a good place to start is in daily prayer to our Heavenly Father thanking Him for the blessings and the skills we do have, with the "because", and then asking for His help to learn receive other blessings and new skills. Let Him know the skills you do have and how they are working for you. I invite each of you to practice this daily for one week with me. Be specific in what you ask for the new skill you want to acquire with communication. Communication is a skill we all can continue to develop no matter how good or bad of a communicator we think we are.