Temples

Ok So I had to give a talk yesterday at church...kinda bawled throughout it...Not good.
So its kinda long, so if you don't read all of it, my feelings won't be hurt! And I really didn;t have anything else to say today!


Good Afternoon….I am grateful to be here today. For those of you who don’t know me, I am Jill Harp. My family and I moved into the ward in September. Tim and I met at a church dance in May of 1998. In June of 1998 we got engaged. And we got married in September in the Portland Temple. And 2 months later we found out we were pregnant with Sydney.
After we had Sydney, we knew we wanted to have another baby. About 2 months before she turned 2 we found out we were pregnant. 3 days before her birthday we lost the baby. We struggled with our loss for several years. Never knowing whether we would be able to have another child. As I have looked back over the years up until we had Zander, I know now that it was not his time to be apart of our family just yet.
In March of 2006 our lives came to an abrupt halt as we watched my grandpa become sick and his health began to deteriorate. 3 weeks later on April 1st my grandpa passed away. The day before we were to bury my grandpa, we found out we were pregnant with Zander. This time I knew he was ready to be apart of our family. Expecting him gave us great joy at a time of deep loss.
Today I wish to speak to you about the temple.
The temple is the house of the Lord. The basis for every temple ordinance and covenant - the heart of the plan of salvation - is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the church, point to the Lord and His holy house. Our efforts to proclaim the gospel, perfect the saints and redeem the dead all lead to the temple. Each holy temple stands as a symbol of our membership in the church, as a sign of our faith in life after death, and as a sacred step toward eternal glory for us and our families.
President Hinckley said that, “these unique and wonderful buildings, and the ordinances administered therein, represent the ultimate in our worship. These ordinances become the most profound expressions of our theology.”
In the temple we receive a gift, the endowment. In receiving this gift, we should understand its significance and the importance of keeping sacred covenants. The temple endowment was given by revelation. It is best understood by revelation, prayerfully sought with a sincere heart.
President Brigham Young said, “Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father….and gain your eternal exaltation.”
To endow is to enrich, to give to another something long-lasting and of much worth. The endowment ordinances enrich in three ways:
1. The one receiving the ordinance is given power from God. President Bruce R. McKonkie said, “Recipients are endowed with power from on high”
2. A recipient is also endowed with information and knowledge. President McKonkie says, “They receive knowledge relative to the Lord’s purposes and plans.”
3. When sealed at the altar, a person is the recipient of glorious blessings, powers and honors, as part of his endowment.
The ordinances of the temple are so sacred that they are not open to the view of the public. They are available only to those who qualify through righteous living. Many blessings come to those who receive and respect these sacred ordinances, which are so necessary for exaltation. The temple is a sanctuary from the world, a bit of heaven on earth and we should continue to live worthily so that we can go to the temple often and renew our covenants.
My grandparents are not members of this church, nor are any, of my extended family members, other than my parents and brothers. My grandparents were married for 63 years and their marriage has ended at death. But the day will come when we will have my grandparents sealed together and then my mom and eventually her siblings can be sealed to their parents.
Temple ordinances, covenants, endowments and sealings enable individuals to be reconciled with the Lord and families to be sealed beyond the veil of death. Obedience to temple covenants qualifies us for eternal life, the greatest gift of God to man.
President Spencer W. Kimball said, “Are you willing to jeopardize your eternities, your great continuing happiness, your privilege to see God and dwell in His presence? For the want of investigation and study and contemplation, because of prejudice, misunderstanding or lack of knowledge, are you willing to forego these great blessings and privileges? Are you willing to make yourself a widow for eternity or a widower for the endless ages – a single, separate individual to live alone and serve others? Are you willing to give up your children when they die or when you expire, and make them orphans? Are you willing to go through eternity alone and solitary when all of the greatest joys you have ever experienced in life could be “added upon” and accentuated, multiplied and eternalized? Are you willing to ignore and reject these great truths?
This life makes no logical sense, unless we think in terms of the eternities. The transcendent blessings of this life and eternity are received within the sacred walls of the temple. The Savior’s supernal gift to mankind gave us the opportunity for eternal life, but eternal life without our loved ones would be bleak.
When I was 16 my family joined the church. A year after we were baptized my family went to the temple. At this time it was only me and my brother, Jamie and my parents. After having been sealed, my parents knew that there was another child waiting to be here with our family. Before we joined the church I remember being on vacations and having moments of panic, feeling like someone was lost. I was able to see my brother and my parents, but never understood what this meant until I was 19 and Tyler was born. No longer were there feelings of panic. What fun it has been to have a little brother who is now almost 10 years old!
A basic eternal truth of this church is that families may, if they are worthy, have an eternal relationship; for us it would not be heaven without our parents, our grandparents, our eternal companions, our children and our posterity. This union of families comes through the sealing power exercised within the walls of the temple under authorized priesthood authority.
An eternal family begins when a young couple kneels at an altar in the holy temple of God, and make covenants with each other and with God and receive his greatest promises. This sealing is preceded by each making and receiving covenants which, if they continue worthy, will bless them in this life as well as in the life to come.

Why are we here on earth?

The Prophet Joseph Smith said, “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the celestial kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body.”
In the premortal realm we learned that the body was part of God’s great plan of happiness for us. As it states in the Family Proclamation “Spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize his or her divine destiny as an heir of eternal life.
In 1Corinthians 3:16-17 it reads: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
We must do all we can to keep our minds and our bodies-our personal “temples of God”-clean and pure.
First, we must not allow the ways of the world to clutter our lives. At the temple the dust of distraction seems to settle out, the fog and the haze seem to lift, and we can ‘see’ things that we were not ale to see before and find a way through our troubles that we had not previously known.
Second, we must see that there are no dark places in our lives. The Savior has invited all to come unto Him through repentance. In D&C 58:42-43 it reads:
“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins-behold he will confess them and forsake them”
Third, we must be aware of the graffiti that can come in to our lives through inappropriate books, music, movies, television or language. President Hinckley has also cautioned us against obtaining tattoos and body piercings. You would not paint a temple with dark pictures or symbols or graffiti or even initials. Do not do so with your body.
Your body really is the instrument of your mind and the foundation of your character.
President Harold B. Lee taught of the important symbolic and actual effect of how we dress and groom our bodies. If you are well groomed and modestly dressed, you invite the companionship of the Spirit of our Father in Heaven and exercise a wholesome influence upon those around you. To be unkempt in your appearance exposes you to influences that are degrading.
We must learn that the body and the person are not to be judged using worldly criteria. A persons worth is not dependent upon his or her appearance. What makes a temple precious is what it allows us to learn and to do. Many buildings are outwardly beautiful, but only within the temple can the splendor and magnificence of God’s eternal truth and promise be found. The worth of the body is great in the sight of God, but the preciousness of the body comes from what it allows us to learn and do from what it radiates from within. We must enable our temple-bodies to radiate the light, love and truth of Christ. Alma asks, “Have ye spiritually been born of God” Have ye received His image in your countenances?” A Christlike countenance that radiates truth, charity and hope constitutes true beauty – beauty in the eyes of the ultimate beholder, God.
A temple not only is sacred, but it also radiates light and truth. True beauty comes from who and what an individual is.
There is a song called, “His image in your countenance”, here are the words:
With no apparent beauty that man should him desire
He was the promised Savior to purify with fire
The world despised His plainness but those who followed Him
Found love and light and purity; A beauty from within
Have you received His image in your countenance?
Does the light of Christ shine in your eyes?
Will He know you when He comes again because you will be like Him?
When He sees you will the Father know His child.
We seek for light and learning as followers of Christ
That all may see His goodness reflected in our lives
When we receive His fullness and lose desire for sin
We radiate his perfect love, a beauty from within
Have you received His image in your countenance?
Does the light of Christ shine in your eyes?
Will He know you when He comes again because you will be like Him?
When He sees you will the Father know His child.
The ways of man may tempt us and some will be deceived
Preferring worldly beauty, forgetting truth received
But whisperings of the Spirit remind us once again
That lasting beauty pure and clean must come from deep within
Have you received His image in your countenance?
Does the light of Christ shine in your eyes?
Will He know you when He comes again because you will be like Him?
When He sees you will the Father know His child, by His everlasting image in your eyes.


I pray that we can receive His image in our countenance. That the light of Christ will shine in our eyes. I am grateful for the temple. I know that if we live worthily of the temple blessings we can be with our families forever. I am grateful for Tim. He is my best friend. I am grateful that we were sealed together and that our children will be with us forever. I am grateful to Sydney and Zander, they are a true blessing in my life.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen