Isn't it sad that they can never see
like the bottoms of our outfits? Am I
the only one who's sad about that?
Okay Mimi and I's outfits are always
from the top to the bottom on point.
David as well dresses well but let's be
honest, I think we do it better. 
I'm kidding, I'm joking! I just don't wear pants.
You just never know. That's the
reason why he need never stands up. It's
just, you look down and you just go, "Woah!"
The first time I ever prayed with
the missionaries, I said it and then the
one of the friends who was with me said,
"Kwaku, we end our prayers with 'in the
name of Jesus Christ'" and he said it very
intensively. Was that scary? No, no, no! Oh okay. Because I always prayed like, "Dear God, thanks.
Alright, love you, bye." It was like a cell phone call. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, thanks." That's so interesting.
And then I learned that there's probably
more relevant ways, more respectful
ways to pray to God and we're gonna talk
about it. A lot of people pray
differently according to what church
they go to which is fine, we're all
trying to do our best to communicate with
God. We do it in a, I wouldn't say a super
unique way, I think there are other
people who do it fairly similar if not
exactly the same as us. Yeah, yeah. But I
mean one thing that we don't do is we
don't have recited prayers unless it's
for an ordinance, which we're gonna throw
a link in here about ordinances. Our
prayers are spontaneous. And I
think it's interesting, my sister married
the grandson of a big Southern Baptist
preacher in Houston and
whenever I, you know, go home and visit
them, a lot of southerners do these big
group prayers where they all hold hands
and someone prays and whenever they,
in the prayer ,they say something they
agree with, someone just goes, "Amen!" In the middle of prayer? In the middle of the prayer. So they'll
be praying and be like, "We love you
Jesus!" and two people like, "Amen, hallelujah!"
And the prayer lasts a long time, people
just throw amens,
amens in and that's actually how a lot
of people pray. And so when they're
investigating the LDS Church and they
see us cross our arms and kneel, they go,
"What's going on?" So it's not scary,
nothing weird is about to happen. And
it's not necessarily even bad to say
Amen during a prayer, it just means
you're listening and you're agreeing.
Generally as a custom in the church we
don't. Yeah, we're silent. But let's get
into the semantics here of how
we pray. So when we pray, we're addressing
our Father in heaven, so God. We're not
addressing, I know some other religions
will might address Mary or Jesus but we
actually go directly to our Father in
Heaven. He's there, He knows me, He's
listening and He's the God of all
gods, you know? Yeah, yeah pretty cool.
Yeah, Jesus is our mediator between
heaven and earth and without Jesus, we
could not know the Father and since
Jesus did what he did,
we can pray to the Father, we can pray
directly to the Father and talk to him
and if you listen to an LDS prayer or
some other religions pray the same way
you'll hear them end, they'll say
something like, "In the name of Jesus
Christ, amen." Which can be really weird to people if
they're not used to that format. Yeah. So why do
we do that?
If we turn to scriptures in the Book of
Mormon
3 Nephi 18 verses 18 through 20, it says this,
is this is Jesus talking he says,
That's pretty cut-and-dry. Yeah. We pray to
the Father in the name of Jesus because he told
us to. And who is the perfect example for
man on earth? It was the Savior and who
did he pray to? He prayed to his father, he prayed to God the Father, that's who our
Father is as well so we pray and we communicate
with him and another thing with
praying in Jesus's name is it's not just
like sticking that on the end of the
prayer,
we need to make sure that our prayers
are in accordance to what Christ would
want and so I remember there was a
conference talk of a general authority or
someone was talking about how there
might be a time where like your prayers
you feel like they're not being answered
or not coming true and obviously if you
prayed that like something bad is gonna
happen to someone, that's not according
to Christ's will and that's not going to
happen. So praying in Christ's name is
not just on the end of your prayer
because it needs to be really true
intentions that are good. Saying,
"Help me win the lottery, in the name of
Jesus" is probably not the best. We also
believe that anyone can pray no matter
how worthy or unworthy so if you've
sinned recently and you think, "Oh, I
shouldn't be praying," No no, you should
pray, it doesn't matter if you've been
drinking or you've had sex or you did
drugs or you've worn Crocs or whatever
you've done as long as-- what? I'm saying
Crocs are bad, I'm agreeing with you.
They're all on the same par with Crocs. As I slip off my Crocs under the table. Are you--
I'm kidding. We thought it could've been real though, that's the concern!
They're a cousin. God wants you to be
communicating with him and I think I'm
paraphrasing but there's a Brigham Young
quote-  "if you don't feel worthy to pray,
keep praying until you do." Yeah. You know
when you do you do something dumb and
then you call your parents and you're
like, "Hey I got a ticket" or something and
you're like, "Oh, I'm dreading this call"
cuz you're gonna be like, they're gonna
be like, "Oh great, look at my dumb kid" but I
don't think Heavenly Father is looking
at it that way. I think Heavenly Father is,
he knows you've sinned
but the humility it takes to come forward
to him and talk to him anyway
is sort of, it's like when you mess up
and you think your parents are really
upset and then you go to them anyway and
then your parents kind of embrace
with with open arms like, "Oh it's okay."
If you ever feel like you don't want
to pray because you feel not
worthy or like you feel like you
shouldn't, that's usually probably Satan
trying to convince you not to when
really Heavenly Father just would be
welcoming you with open arms.
He's never gonna turn anyone away.
Disclaimer, if you haven't participated
in an LDS prayer yet, when you do, you're
probably
gonna hear words like "thee" and "thine" and "thou" and that's
just a language of respect that we
choose to use, it's not like your prayer
is invalid if you don't use that
language. Do whatever you're most
comfortable with
with your relationship with God.
I know a lot of people when they
pray, they don't use middle English. I
like to, I like it more, that way I feel
better but some people don't. It's also
only an English thing so you might,
you'll go to, if you're investigating and
you'll go to a friend's ward and you'll
hear them, you know, "Thank thee for all
that thou hast done," things like that and
you do not have to use those words but
make sure they're words of reverence and
they're words of respect and you know. 
Another thing you're gonna see is people
folding their arms and probably bowing
their head and closing their eyes,
kneeling as well, a lot of people will
take off their hats when they're praying
and that's just customary signs of
respect. I like it I like it because
I feel like I'm able to focus more and
I'm not thinking so much about or on
things around me like distractions. I
just feel like I'm in the zone and
praying and I'm remembering what it's
all about.
But you probably don't see a lot of
Mormons praying like this, but really there's nothing
wrong. Some people pray like this. We'll do that. If you're most comfortable praying like that, pray like that.
Or like this even. I knew one
guy that would pray like this. He'd put
his hand right here. It was kind of interesting.
Another thing to about Mormons is we
don't have a certain amount of times
we're supposed to pray in the day and
there aren't like certain times that we
are supposed to communicate with God.
It's really whenever we feel like we
need it. Very common is doing it in the
morning and at night before bed, that's
what I personally like to do it but it's
really whenever. You can always have a
prayer in your heart and it's cool
because we really prefer to speak
prayers out loud but you can always have
a prayer in your heart and say it
silently to yourself. Okay so we
know at the beginning of the prayer
we address Heavenly Father, at the end of
the prayer we end in the name of Jesus
Christ and in the middle we fill that
with the things that were grateful for
and the things that we need. You
don't have to say the things that you
think you're just supposed to say, right?
You don't have to like, "Thank you God so
much for this day, thank you for
everything you've done," if you don't mean
that, you know, if you're just like
you're just rattling it off cuz it's what
you're supposed to say, well I mean
it's good because you're trying to keep
that connection but also you can, I
think God's okay be you give a sincere
honest prayer about how you feel. And they
suggest against having vain repetitions.
Yeah you don't want to say anything over
and over again. Cuz imagine like seeing
someone and you talk to him like twice a day,
every time you talk to him you say the
exact same things, you know it's
important not to say the exact same
things, and not mean it. I pray for
safety every day and that's something I feel very
passionately about. I make sure
I mention it. On that subject, a lot of
times before long road trips latter-day
saints will pray all together, you know,
for safety, before blessing food,
you know, "Please bless this food that it
will nourish and strengthen our bodies." I
have a Kwaku edit to that because
when I'm eating something unhealthy, you
know a bunch of gummy worms or cake or
something I will say, "Please bless that
this tastes good and will give me
protein," that's what I say instead.
Because-- that shouldn't be like your full meal though-- I know. Gummys have no protein!
Maybe cake, I don't know I'm just
saying, there are eggs in cake--
like a Wendy's meal, you know, like it isn't healthy for but there's some
protein, you know? After I joined the church, you know,
everyone goes through, has some
doubts about everything, you know, every
religion people tell. So after I
joined the church, I had this this
period of time where I was kind of like, "Oh no, is this part true? Is this
part true? I'd already asked God if the
Book of Mormon was true, I'd already
asked him if the Bible was true,
if Joseph Smith was a prophet, if Jesus
was my Savior and I asked those things
and I felt the confirmation and so when
I joined the church I went through this
little period of doubt so again, I
kneeled and I prayed and asked is the
Book of Mormon true and not all the time
do you get answered immediately but
right then and there I felt a almost
like a like a hug. You know like a
spiritual hug I felt right then there
like, "Oh yeah, it's true."
Not all prayers happen like that.
Some take weeks to answer, some takes
days, some take hours, and once I was
actually-- the way I've
prayed has changed. I dated a girl and we
prayed and then after I was like, "So"
and she was like, "Shh, listen" and I was
like, "Oh" and then I was like, "Oh yeah,
it actually helps." You can listen
to how you feel.
So praying is is sometimes a little more
than just what you say, it's how much
you're listening, you know? They say
you're a holy man if you speak to God
but if God speaks back you're
schizophrenic, we don't say that on this
show! I've never heard that. That's what they say.
Who is they? You know that saying? That was a General Authority that said that.
That wasn't true.
At the end of the day, you're talking with
your Father and that's the most
important thing. So you know what you
should also do that's important? You
should subscribe to our channel. Click the
notification bell to be notified when
our videos come up, like us on Instagram-- well, 
follow us on Instagram and you can
like our posts. I was on a role, I messed on up. Be sure to comment on our video! Any cool
experience you have with prayer because
I love reading your comments and I want
to know what has happened with your life. And I promise to be nicer in
the comments, apparently a bit snarky,
maybe just not using enough smiley faces
I don't know. That always helps if there's ever a questionable text just add a smiley face at the end.
Kwaku, I hate you and I hope you burn. 
Thanks! Wink. Then it's happy, right? No one has said that.
