Our Lord says, "Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
With these words Christ summons His people to prayer. And more especially to prayer in the private closet. That is the beginning and continuation of spiritual progress. Prayer is the secret of success, from a spiritual point of view, in every human undertaking. The Church, itself, is the answer to a prayer, and every important revelation has come through minds prepared to receive them by communion with the Father. It was only after Elijah had been "hidden" as it were, with God that he had the power to combat the paganism of his day. Moses, too, emerged from his association with God in the desert as one of the greatest of law givers and prophets. Prayer, public and private, is more important than preaching. Both, in order to be effective, must be dictated by the Holy Spirit.
In answer to prayer. "Latter-day Saints have individually almost without exception been given testimonies of the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Hundreds of thousands of people who have never lived in a Stake of Zion, who have never gathered to Zion, from the midnight sun country of Scandinavia to South Africa, have been blessed with individual testimonies in answer to earnest prayer, that God lives and that Jesus Christ is in very deed His Son, also that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God."-President Heber J. Grant.