Experience #1:
It must have happened when I was about nine or ten, I’m not sure. I was still in primary so I wasn’t very old. One week, after we’d learned, “The Child’s Prayer”, I remember kneeling on my bunk bed one afternoon and really wanting to know if the words to that song were true. I began to sing, “Heavenly Father, are you really there? And do you hear and answer every child’s prayer? Some say that heaven is far away. But I feel it close around me as I pray.”
I continued singing through the whole song, tears ran down my face from the warmth I felt as I prayed the words of this now beloved song. “Heavenly Father, I remember now. Something that Jesus told disciples long ago. Suffer the children to come to me. Father, in prayer I’m coming out to Thee.”
This is how I gained my testimony of prayer. This is how I KNOW that Heavenly Father really listens when I speak to Him, even though I felt so insignificant. I know He hears my prayers. “Pray, He is there. Speak, He is listening. You are His child. His arms now surround you. He hears your prayers. He loves the children of such is the kingdom, the kingdom of Heaven.”
Experience #2:
One afternoon when I was busy working on my faith project for personal progress, laying on my bottom bunk of my bed in my very own room. I remember telling God that I wanted a testimony of The Book of Mormon and I wanted it now. I’d wanted one of those flashbulb testimonies that come all of a sudden, that I didn’t need to work on or let it rise slowly like a sunrise. Those took too long. I needed the testimony now.
I soon realized that Heavenly Father did not work that way and He probably didn’t like my attitude that much either. I became humble, but I also became sad. Sad that I couldn’t just have what I’d asked even though it was something good. I needed to work for it, earn it, and then develop it over a period of time.
A realization also came to me then, memories of when I’d been reading my The Book of Mormon on my Dad’s bed and in the pickup waiting for a brother to finish up mowing a lawn. I remembered the feelings I’d had. The intense feelings I’d had that had caused tears to leave my eyes. It was then that I realized I’d already had a testimony all along.
All the time I’d been reading The Book of Mormon my testimony of it had been growing brighter and brighter like the morning sun. I just hadn’t realized it because it had been so gradual. I know that The Book of Mormon is true, and this was how I started to have a testimony of it.
Experience #3:
There have been a lot of small insignificant things that have happened that I kind of want to share, things that have cemented in me even more my testimony of prayer. Once on a bus to or from a tennis match I could not find my phone! I just couldn’t find it anywhere! So I finally paused my search and said a quick prayer that I’d find it. I opened my eyes, opened my hand, and there it was sitting nice and snug in the palm of my right hand. :)
I’ve prayed to find other things and I’ve found them eventually. One time I lost a library book and didn’t find it in time to return it so I had to pay for it. I ended up finding it the day after school got out but I did find it. That was in the Jr. High.
I’m currently going to BYU-Idaho and I’ve been praying pretty much none stop since I’ve gotten here. I pray for strength to be able to do things I’ve never done before and to find my way. I cross my pinky and ring finger when praying none conspicuously in public. It is my secret way to chat with God, but I guess it isn’t quite a secret anymore.
I pray that everything will work out alright and it always does. I’ve prayed that the people I meet will be kind to me and they are. I’ve prayed that everything would work out ok when I didn’t finish a homework assignment and I had the choice to either be an usher and go to devotional or do my homework. I chose devotional and I have no regrets about that. Even though I may have a bad grade for a while I know that everything will be alright.
Experience #4:
I’d like to share with you my thoughts about prayer when my mom was sick and eventually died. She had stage four lung cancer and, as an eleven and twelve year old little girl, I believed that Heavenly Father would find her some miracle drug that would make her all better. I’d pray for that, or for her chemo to work. It didn’t and I was so confused.
I knew that Heavenly Father could hear me and I knew that He loved me and my mom so why did I have to watch as my mom was slowly being eaten away by that scary monster called cancer? My mom was the best person I’d ever known! Why did that have to happen to my mom? Of course Heavenly Father is like my best friend so I’d tell Him everything and ask Him all of these really hard questions as I’d lay on the top bunk of my bed and sometimes cried myself to sleep at night.
It was so strange the answering feelings that came to me, I realize now, as I’d say my prayers and see my mother everyday getting progressively worse. I’d feel a sad peace. My mother was dying and up until she died I still felt Heavenly Father could cure my mom. Even now I know He has the power to cure the sick, but my mom was called home.
She was gone from this life and I won’t be able to see her until I die myself someday. She now wouldn’t be able to teach me how to wear makeup or be at my high school graduation when I spoke, or help me with womanly issues! Although sometimes I have forgotten, even in all of my sad ponderings and my shock from her death, I never ever EVER doubted that my Heavenly Father loved me and that He heard all my prayers, ever!
Experience #5:
Have you ever read the parable of the talents? Well I had read it and for some reason I just wasn’t convinced that He had given me even one, because I couldn’t see them. It was in my second year as a YCL, and like most every year they had a talent show, where I learned I had talents. This year I had chosen to participate and read a poem or a story I had written.
We were on second floor in the lodge at Pine Top. The stage was situated pretty much in front of the stairs. I was sitting down with my friends and 4th years I was over trying to decide what poem or story to share. I picked a poem entitled, The Girl in the Mirror.
As I sat watching one by one all of the performances, it hit me how Heavenly Father really did give all of those girls talent. Sometimes a girl would stand and sing, and it would be pitchy or screechy but you just felt the spirit telling you that she was loved and she did have talents even if the world wouldn’t look at her and think so at the moment. There were girl’s dancing, singing, reading, and they had displays of artwork like photographs and paintings. During each talent I felt the spirit say that the girl performing was loved and talented.
When it was my turn I got up and stepped over people to get to the “stage”. There I began my poem. I was overtaken by the intense feeling I know now as the spirit. It bore witness to me that night that Heavenly Father really did love me and He gave me talents too. I really was talented. He has given everyone talents. That talent show was the highlight of girl’s camp that year.
Experience #6:
When driving home from girl’s camp my second year as a YCL, I was surprised by the magnitude of my emotions. I cried for a good stretch of winding mountain road, saddened by the fact that I probably won’t be going to girl’s camp again for a long, long while, if ever. My tears, it turned out, weren’t warranted when I was called the following year to be an Assistant Ward Camp Leader.
This was my first major calling outside of being in young women’s and boy was it hard. I didn’t have to do very much in preparation but when the days of camp came, they were hard. I felt bad that only two leaders from our ward would be able to go and when Sister Powel picked me to come that meant all the other sisters couldn’t. I felt under qualified and a little stressed but I thought to myself, “Heavenly Father did give me this calling so He must know what He’s doing.”
It was extremely hard to love the challengingly, different girls and it was a struggle everyday just to be really, truly happy, but then the testimony meeting arrived and I had the opportunity to be the last one to bear my testimony in the ward testimony meeting. Before I stood I asked for my Heavenly Father’s help to share with the girls the parts of my testimony that would most help them. As I began I felt this overwhelming feeling of love and felt for the first time since coming to camp that I was really meant to be there.
I have no idea what I talked about but I remember vividly the feelings that went with the words. I knew that what I was saying was true and that I was speaking with the spirit! Every time I started going off what the Lord wanted me to say I felt the spirit stop speaking with me. Then I’d get back on course and He’d return. It felt so good to know the words you spoke where the words that God would have had you say.
Experience #7:
Just last weekend I had the chance to hop a ride with my friends and go home for the weekend. It was a last minute thing and I really hate those but I missed my family so much, I was really thinking about going. I didn’t, and I’ll tell you why. When my friends first decided they were going I got really sad. I didn’t want them to decide that because then I had to decide if I was going to go or not. I thought to myself, “If I went would I have the strength to come back?” I mean college is fine but home? Home is much, much better, especially when you have a family like mine.
We’d been talking about this in my apartment, in the kitchen, and to get away and be able to think I went in my room. I told Heavenly Father everything I was feeling and confessed that I didn’t know what to do. I kept thinking about it.
OK, so let’s take note that in the morning I had decided to read my scriptures and say my morning prayer. So, I should be worthy of the spirit in my moment of need. I kept on thinking about it, the pros and cons, everything. As Leah and Danielle were there I talked with them a little and I just kept thinking. I had to decide soon. They’d be leaving within an hour.
As I pondered again if I stayed verses if I went home I recognized that every time I thought about staying I felt this calm, this peace. In contrast, every time I thought about going I felt unsettled and worried. I had finally gotten my answer. I chose to follow it even though I didn’t know why. I still don’t know why, but I can’t discount the feelings I had. I know that they were answers to my heartfelt prayers, and that the spirit gave them to me with such subtlety that it took me a while to receive them. I know what it feels like to receive answers to prayers through the spirit. It was amazing and I want to feel this again soon.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Anna Martin
*Please note that if you want a more factually correct history, I did write several journals and you can read them when I'm dead.
Hello. My name is Anna Marie
Martin. I’m 18 years old. And I believe in Christ. I believe that He can heal
my broken dreams and restore hope at times when I can’t even fake a smile. I
know He loves me with a love I won’t ever completely understand. I know He
really did heal the lepers, blind, lame, deaf, and forgive the sinner. He was moved with so much compassion
towards people that he sacrificed His time, His strength, and His life to them,
and He will to us, to me. There is a scripture, Alma 39:17, “… is not a soul at
this time as precious to God as a soul will be at the time of his coming?” I
think of all the people He healed and I know, I know, that if He could raise a
man from the dead, He can help me do something new and as alien-like as family
history work. The Savior is your Savior. He is my Savior! We have a Heavenly
Father, our God, who will listen to heartfelt prayers. And He really does
answer them. And if you can’t find the answer either you haven’t looked hard
enough or you need to be patient and try your hardest and trust Him because He
will eventually answer you. I know that The Book of Mormon is a true
book of God. The people and stories contained therein are real. I have learned in my day to day life that reading The
Book of Mormon in the morning gives me added strength through the
challenges of the day. It gives me added strength because I know my Father in
Heaven, my God, will bless me because of it and that because I am trying to
keep His commandments He is obligated to help me all He can. And finally, I
know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church of
God. I know it from the feelings I get from living its teachings. And I know
you can feel it too if you’ll only let yourself. 