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Communicate: Petition and Listen

Ponder:Have you had an experience when Heavenly Father has answered your prayers about a job, your business, or your education?

“Creating Lift” (No video? Read the next page.)

Discuss:How does President Uchtdorf say we can elevate ourselves from worldly cares? Are there times when we do not recognize answers to our prayers? Is listening an essential part of prayer?

Read:Doctrine and Covenants 8:2; Elder Nelson’s quote (on the right)

“I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.”

Doctrine and Covenants 8:2

“Your soul will be blessed as you learn to listen, then listen to learn from children, parents, partners, neighbors, and Church leaders, all of which will heighten capacity to hear counsel from on high.”

Russell M. Nelson, “Listen to Learn,” Ensign, May 1991, 24

Discuss:As a group, discuss these questions: Why is listening an essential skill? How can careful listening help us in our work?

Practice:Do this activity to learn to improve your listening skills:

• As a group, read the steps below and briefly discuss them.

• Ask one or two members of the group to tell the others about a challenge or question they have. Everyone else should try to listen, following these steps.

• Ask the group members who spoke how they felt when the group really tried to listen.

❶

Concentrate

• Focus on the speaker’s words and body language.

• Don’t interrupt.

➋

Appreciate

• Look at the speaker.

• Use small words like “yes”or “okay.”

• Thank the speaker.

➌

Review

• Say: “So, you are saying. …”

• Then repeat what you heard.

➍

Ask

• Ask: “Did I understand?”

• Wait for an answer and listen.

Commit:Commit to doing the following actions during the week. Check the boxes when you complete each task:

• Practice the steps to better listening with your family:

  • Ask a family member to share a challenge or question he or she faces.

  • Practice the listening steps as you listen to this challenge.

• Teach this principle to your family.

• Continue to practice the previous foundation principles.

“Our Heavenly Father hears the prayers of His children across the earth pleading for food to eat, for clothes to cover their bodies, and for the dignity that would come from being able to provide for themselves.”

Henry B. Eyring, “Opportunities to Do Good,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2011, 22

“We must ask for help from our Heavenly Father and seek strength through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ. In both temporal and spiritual things, [this] enables us to become provident providers for ourselves and others.”

Robert D. Hales, “Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 7–8

Creating Lift

If you are unable to watch the video, read this script.

PRESIDENT UCHTDORF: In order to get an airplane off the ground, you must create lift. In aerodynamics, lift happens when air passes over the wings of an airplane in such a way that the pressure underneath the wing is greater than the pressure above the wing. When the upward lift exceeds the downward pull of gravity, the plane rises from the ground and achieves flight.

In a similar way, we can create lift in our spiritual life. When the force that is pushing us heavenward is greater than the temptations and distress that drag us downward, we can ascend and soar into the realm of the Spirit.

Though there are many gospel principles that help us to achieve lift, I would like to focus on one in particular.

[Prayer!]

Prayer is one of the principles of the gospel that provides lift. Prayer has the power to elevate us from our [worldly cares. Prayer can] lift us up through clouds of despair [or] darkness into a bright and clear horizon.

One of the greatest blessings and privileges and opportunities we have as children of our Heavenly Father is that we can communicate with Him [through prayer]. We can speak to Him of our life experiences, trials, and blessings. We can listen for and receive celestial guidance from the Holy Spirit [at any time and at any place].

(Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Prayer and the Blue Horizon,” Ensign or Liahona, June 2009, 5–6; words in brackets added by President Uchtdorf in a March 2014 interview)