Does prayer work?

I attended the temple this week and had something dawn on me. It must have been difficult for Adam and Eve to go from being in God's presence to living in the world we live in now. 

An interesting aspect of the Fall experience is that after partaking of the fruit, Adam and Eve were not summarily dismissed from the Garden of Eden immediately after partaking of the fruit. The last two years or so have been challenging for me. I will get into that more in a different post, but due to these extreme challenges it has left me to wonder, "Are my prayers making it past the ceiling? Am I being heard? Does prayer matter, or is God's will going to happen anyway?" It has dawned on me lately that I often take prayer for granted. So how does this relate to Adam and Eve and the Garden? Well, God came to them and told them of the consequences of their actions. I have to think that it was scary for them to consider what life would be like outside the presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ. After having the conditions explained to them, I can't imagine at some point in the conversation with the two members of the Godhead that they didn't ask some variation of, "So we will not be able to interact with you at all?" To which I imagine Heavenly Father or Jesus answered with an explanation of the concept of prayer. What a relief this must have been for them to have at least some lifeline or line of communication with them. Prayer must have been extremely important in that moment and in their earthly experience going forward. Do we take this access for granted? I know I do. Why is that? My personal opinion is that it's because we feel like not all of our prayers are being heard. I'm sure I'm not the only one that has felt like some of my prayers were better than others. 

I'm sure they are all heard. There's no doubt in my mind that a loving Heavenly Father does not ignore His children when they speak to Him. I think a more faithful approach would be to consider that they are all heard, but don't set a time limit on when or how the prayers will be answered. Let Him worry about the timing.