Sacrament Meeting Talk: "Preparing Ourselves and our Families to go to the Temple"

We had the opportunity to give talks in sacrament meeting today.  

Because we move around so often, we generally get to talk about twice a year.  I love it! (okay not so much the actual delivery, or the staying up until 2:00 the night before because I'm such a procrastinator, but I love the process and the very specific direction it gives my study).

Anyway, for anyone who is interested, this is more or less the talk I gave today. (I write it down for my records, but try not to read it when I actually give it.  How do you do talks?)

 

We forgot our camera --all we had was my husband's phone. I guess we'll just have to go back. :)

 Preparing Ourselves and Our Families to go to the Temple

This past Friday, we had the opportunity as a family to go to the Boise Temple open house.  Although our children are young, I wanted to give them an opportunity to see the inside of the temple, feel the spirit there, and to hopefully gain a desire to go there when they are older and when it is a fully functioning edifice dedicated to the Lord. 

We prepared the children by holding an FHE last Monday about temples, and announcing that we would get to go see the inside of the temple in a few days.  We briefly told them what would happen when we went to visit the temple.  We explained how it wasn’t dedicated yet, and that is why anyone, including little children could go through. We talked about what we would see there, and how things would work as we participated in the tour. Like most of our FHE lessons, it was short and to the point, and we moved on to an activity and treats.  We then went on about our week as usual.

When Friday evening rolled around, we rushed to the open house, striving to leave behind the distractions and frustrations of the morning.  It had been a less than ideal day, but we tried to change that as we recognized the importance of this wonderful opportunity.

 As we walked the halls of the temple, the children were subdued and generally reverent. They were duly impressed by the beautiful architecture and recognized some of the things we had talked about. I admit though that we had to move quickly through each room, and I longed to go slower, to take our time and point out certain things to my children. I wished I had done even more preparation with them, and I’m afraid that the white booties on their feet might have made just as lasting an impression as anything.  It was over all too quickly, so after the tour we wandered around the temple grounds allowing the children to explore the outside of the building and to discuss things a little more. It was a little chilly, but we were blessed with a beautiful sunset and we stopped to enjoy it.  As we paused for a moment, I asked my five-year-old son how he had felt in the temple, and with his limited vocabulary he replied, “I felt like… kindness.” 

I don't know that I could have explained what the influence of the Spirit feels like any better.

As I pondered his response, I felt gratitude for a Loving Heavenly Father who blessed our meager efforts –our pitiful attempts at teaching and providing a spiritual experience for our kids, allowing us to forget the unpleasantness of the morning, and still have a fun and meaningful family outing.

I am often humbled at how our seemingly small acts and righteous desires can be magnified beyond our expectations.  It is as if the floodgates of heaven are ready to burst, just waiting for the go-ahead that begins with our simply asking.

Personally, I believe that Heavenly Father wanted our children to have a spiritual experience just as much as we did, if not more, but He needed us to provide the opportunity. That is part of our job as parents.

At the heart of our efforts though, is the goal of actually going to the temple to participate in sacred ordinances.

Preparation for such cannot be done in one quick FHE lesson.  It is a great responsibility and rests upon our shoulders as we prepare individually, and as we teach our children to prepare themselves, to make and keep sacred covenants in the temple.

So how do we prepare ourselves and our children for the Temple?  I’ve come up with three suggestions that can help us.

I.                    Recognize the sacredness of the Temple and the importance of the ordinances performed there. 

II.                  Live as if you have already made temple covenants.

III.                Plan to continue to acquire gospel knowledge and attend the temple regularly.

First, we need to recognize the sacredness of the Temple and the importance of the covenants made there.  There is hardly anything in the world these days that would cultivate such feelings --it seems nothing is sacred.  However, the world can understand the worth of precious things, and knowing this, Jesus in His sermon on the mount used the analogy of throwing pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6). Things that are precious and highly-prized or rare and costly are treated differently; so should we learn to treat sacred things differently.  In a CES broadcast to the youth of the Church back in 2004, Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught that we should dress and act differently in sacred places including our church meetings and especially in and around the temple. How we dress and act is an outward expression of an inward conviction. Sacredness is accompanied by the presence of the Holy Ghost that testifies of truth and if the Spirit is offended by anything within our dress or conduct we would lose that sense of what is sacred.  Elder Christofferson explained,

“When you develop a deepening reverence for sacred things, the Holy Spirit becomes your frequent and then constant companion. You grow in understanding and truth…”

Elder Christofferson also warned,

“On the other hand, those who do not appreciate holy things will lose them. Absent a feeling of reverence, they will grow increasingly casual in attitude and conduct. They will drift from the moorings that their covenants with God could provide. Their feelings of accountability to God will diminish and then be forgotten. Thereafter, they will care only about their own comfort and satisfying their uncontrolled appetites. Finally, they will come to despise sacred things, even God, and then they will despise themselves.”

The commandments of the Gospel, as well as the covenants we make in the temple, are a protection to us as we go throughout this life.  It is a blessing and a privilege to know these things and live accordingly, and it’s never too early or too late to start.

The second way to prepare ourselves and our families to go to the Temple is to live our lives as if we had already made temple covenants. We must teach our children to live according to Church standards regarding honesty, modesty, chastity, living the word of wisdom, etc.  Those who do this will have the companionship of the Holy Ghost to guide them and broaden their understanding. 

Growing up my sisters and I were taught to dress modestly, meaning that we wouldn’t have to change anything about the way we dressed even after we had gone to the temple.  This not only prepared us to go, but it was the beginning of understanding that immodest dress was disrespectful to ourselves as well as to the Lord.  It is not just an arbitrary rule or mere suggestion, if the Lord requires it of His covenant-making people it is because He expects that they understand the reason behind it. This goes back to my first suggestion of reverencing the sacred, and includes sloppy and casual dress or behavior as well. In that same CES broadcast I referred to before, Elder Christofferson explained,

“Some say dress and hair don’t matter—they say it’s what’s inside that counts. I believe that it is what’s inside a person that truly counts, but that’s what worries me. Casual dress at holy places and events is a message about what is inside a person. It may be pride or rebellion or something else, but at a minimum it says, “I don’t get it. I don’t understand the difference between the sacred and the profane.”

In a 1998 devotional at BYU-Idaho (then Ricks College), Elder David A. Bednar as the President of the institution explained the seemingly strict honor and dress codes to students saying,

“My dear young brothers and sisters, the honor code and dress codes are not obstacles designed by out of touch old people to hassle you during your time on the [BYU-Idaho] campus. Rather, the honor code is a lesser law preparation to enter the house of the Lord and make sacred covenants, and the dress code is a lesser law preparation for how you will dress and should act after you entered in to those covenants.  If you struggle at [BYU-Idaho] to obey the lesser and preparatory guidelines contained in the honor and dress codes, then may I candidly suggest that you will not be prepared to make those covenants in the temple.”

Such preparations and principles must be taught in the home.  In the recent October General Conference, Elder Quentin L. Cook called upon parents to combat the sinking morals of society saying,

“Parents, the days are long past when regular, active participation in Church meetings and programs, though essential, can fulfill your sacred responsibility to teach your children to live moral, righteous lives and walk uprightly before the Lord. With President Monson’s announcement this morning, it is essential that this be faithfully accomplished in homes which are places of refuge where kindness, forgiveness, truth, and righteousness prevail. Parents must have the courage to filter or monitor Internet access, television, movies, and music. Parents must have the courage to say no, defend truth, and bear powerful testimony. Your children need to know that you have faith in the Savior, love your Heavenly Father, and sustain the leaders of the Church. Spiritual maturity must flourish in our homes.”

Elder Perry and Elder Perkins also addressed this topic of teaching our children and strengthening families as did many other general authorities in the recent conference.  I encourage you to go back and study those talks, specifically looking for ways we can prepare for entering the temple. It seemed to me that one of the over-arching themes of this last conference was that we must strive to gain a testimony of the Gospel by study and prayer and then seek true conversion through living the Gospel. This is a life-long process, which brings me to my third and final suggestion.

We must plan to continue to acquire gospel knowledge, and plan to attend the temple regularly throughout our lives.

Finally going to the temple is not the end-all destination for true disciples of Jesus Christ. Going for ourselves is an extremely important step in our eternal progression, but if we are truly converted we will understand, and like the fruit of the tree of life in Lehi’s dream, we would rejoice and desire that all may partake (1 Nephi 8:12). Luckily we are blessed to be able to return to the Temple as often as we like as we serve those who have gone on before us by doing those ordinances for them by proxy which they cannot do for themselves.  This is how I understand the scripture that explains, “they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect.” (D&C 128:15).  I think that in some ways, we would have a harder time becoming perfected if we could not go to the temple over and over again for them, being reminded of our covenants and learning more and more each time we go.

  

In another talk by Elder Bednar, this time from April of 2009, he speaks of conversations he had with emeritus general authorities who later became temple presidents.  He asked them what they had learned as temple presidents that they wished they had better understood as general authorities. The answers that came could be summarized in this way:

“I have come to understand better the protection available through our temple covenants and what it means to make an acceptable offering of temple worship. There is a difference between church-attending, tithe-paying members who occasionally rush into the temple to go through a session and those members who faithfully and consistently worship in the temple.”

How grateful I am that we will soon have the temple in Boise rededicated and functional again.  It is my hope that all of us will try harder to make it to the temple whether for the first time or the 101^st, and that we will make it a regular habit. 

I know that as we do this, and as we diligently strive to teach our families and prepare ourselves, making worthy goals of temple attendance, the Lord will magnify our efforts and bless us.

I leave this with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.