This post is about prayer. Prayer is something I have struggled with my whole life. Daily prayer has never been something I have done on a regular basis. I set out with the best of intentions to say morning and evening prayers and it just doesn't happen. I don't know why.

Now I want to make one thing very clear. I could not live my life without  prayer. I have had to many life lessons that have taught me the power of prayer and that my Heavenly Father is there for me whenever I have needed him. I can testify that every time I have reached out to Him he has been there and answered my prayer. In my patriarchal blessing I am told to have a prayer in my heart always. I can honestly say I have learned to do that. If I did not have that communication every day I would not have survived the last couple of years.

Reading about Enos teaches us so much about prayer and how important it is to talk with our Father. Imagine how Enos felt to hear the words that his sins were forgiven. To know that because of his faith the records of his people would be preserved. The comfort he must have felt from those words. We can also have that comfort in our trials. We can have the sweet confirmation that all will be well.

I have started to talk with Him as I would if I were talking to my earthly father. My fears, my concerns, my gratitude. This has brought me closer to Him and I feel that He is my Father and I can talk to Him about anything. 

I share this testimony with you. Our Father in Heaven loves us and knows us. He wants to bless us but we must reach out to him in prayer. 

I learned a lot about Satan this week. As you read 2 Nephi 28-29 you see our day and the power he has over the world. The moral decay of our world is very pronounced and he is has dominion. The one aspect of Satan that I had never considered was that he thinks he can win. That if he can get more people to commit sin the sheer numbers will give him victory and he will be become God and have all the glory. In a talk by Elder William J. Critchlow, Jr., Assistant to the Council of the Twelve, in 1967 he brings up the wide held belief that Satan does what he does because he wants all to be miserable like himself but that it is more than that. This concept opened my eyes to a wider perspective and made Satan more real to me.

After spending time on the bad I then immersed myself in the good. To be taught again about the baptism of Jesus. To understand that even though He was perfect He was obedient to His father and set the example for us to follow. How even He needed the gift of the Holy Ghost to sustain Him and that my Father gives me this same gift. How amazing is that!

Chapters 31-33 of 2 Nephi are so powerful. I pulled out my actual paper scriptures and found that I had marked several scriptures that touched my spirit.

20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.

 21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

 9 But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.

It is so plain and simple. Our Father loves us. This is His plan. If we follow it as best we can and endure we will have eternal life with him.