Lesson Proposal

I have decided to teach a lesson on prayer. As of late, this has not been my strong suit and it is making me uneasy. Prayer is our direct line to Heaven Father and if you neglect it, you will eventually lose contact. In the lesson I hope to teach people how important prayer is not just every once in awhile, but always, continually with a prayer in your heart. The student will come away from this lesson with a new understanding of prayer i.e. the language of prayer, sincerity of prayer, and how to recieve answers to prayers. They will be able to pray with confidence, sincerity and gratefulness. There are many resources to use to accomplish this criteria, but my favorite would have to be the scriptures. Scripture upon scripture tells of the importance of prayer in the Gospel. It is our way of communication. We give thanks with prayer, we ask questions with prayer, we repent through prayer. It is an extremely important gospel principle I think a lot of us take for granted, me included. Other resources I will use are talks from church magazines. My mother not to long ago referenced a talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks entitled "Language of Prayer." It was a great reference on appropriately talking to Heavenly Father. There are other talks given that would great resources for a lesson on prayer. Hopefully by the end of the lesson people will understand how important prayer is in their lives and the gospel. I would hope they would start applying what they learned in the lesson to their lives and see how much they improve. I will know they have learned when I can look at them and see their countenences glowing with the power prayer gives them. I plan to find at least 5 scriptures to share and expand on dealing with prayer by the end of the week. Then I will move onto talks. I will find at least 3 talks and pick out the best quotes and teachings from each of the talks and integrate them with the scriptures I found. Then I will ponder on my life and see how prayer has blessed and influenced my life throughout the years and write down a couple experiences to share. Then I will come up with a challenge to present to the students and hope they will accomplish it and develop a testimony of prayer, just as I have.