The Temple

On Sunday the theme of church was the temple. The sacrament talks were on the temple, 3 of the 4 given by Temple Ordinance Workers. Then in Relief Society/Priesthood the Bishop talked on the temple. He started by playing President Monson's talk on the temple from this past conference. Then he discussed the importance of going to the temple often. He gave a few statistics about how many members in the ward were endowed, then he told the ward that only 79% of those currently hold a temple recommend and how he thought that even fewer than that use it regularly. It was inspiring to be better at attending the temple, but Jare and I felt a little better because we had attended the temple the night before. During the lesson from the Bishop a sweet older sister raised her hand to share a story. She spoke the first week we attended this ward, and Jared and I were very impressed with her. She is a small petite woman and her husband is a larger man (tall) in a wheelchair. I don't know anything else about them but I felt such love for them as she shared her story. She talked about how they had been given names to take to the temple and do their work for them. They attended and did a lot of the names, then summer came including traveling and children coming into town. One day/night her husband heard voices, the other 4 names of those they hadn't finished. He immediately felt the importance of needing to go and do their work. They attended the next 2 days to finish their work. As she was sharing this story her husband sat next to her. At first just a tear rolled down his cheek, then another, then you could hear his sob. It broke my heart because you could tell he truly felt bad about forgetting these last 4 names. As Jared and I talked about this later we discussed the sadness that we felt for him, his guilt in forgetting for a few months to do their work. We concluded that we now understand what WEEPING is. This man was truly weeping because of what had happened. 

As we start this year (well now a month into it) Jared and I have set a goal to make even more of an effort to attend the temple. It is a beautiful place where we can grow together and closer to our Heavenly Father. I challenge you to attend the temple even more often than you already do.

Enjoy the Journey.