The Importance of the Temple by Melanie Brown

As I sat up here on the stand today, I was able to look out and see so many
of my primary children’s faces. I’m so grateful for my calling as primary
chorister which has allowed me to get to know these amazing kids. In
preparing for our Sunday singing time each week, I spend time throughout
the week repeating unfamiliar songs over and over again, and sometimes
re-learning more familiar primary songs. I then get to teach them the
simple and pure messages about our Savior and His teachings that are
found within these songs. Nothing is as powerful, and brings the Spirit more
quickly than these children testifying of the Savior and His truths through
song.
I remember when I was in primary and teachers would teach me these
same songs. One of the songs I loved to sing and to now hear our primary
kids sing, is the song I Love to see the Temple. Primary kids, since you
know the words, I want you to think about them as I say them.
I love to see the temple.
I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.
When I was little, this song made me appreciate the beauty of the temple.
How pure and clean it was. How the most pristine and exquisite materials
were used to build it. How beautiful it was when it was lit up at night. And
how it looked different than any other buildings.
As this song clearly teaches, the temple is a house of God. It points us to
our Savior, Jesus Christ. In temples, we participate in sacred ordinances
and make covenants with Heavenly Father that bind us to Him and to our
Savior. These covenants and ordinances prepare us to return to Heavenly
Father’s presence and to be sealed together as families for eternity.
Some Sundays as I’m jumping up and down during a primary wiggle song
with junior primary, or singing a song standing on one foot with senior
primary, I’m often reminded that I’m definitely not as young as I used to be!
But with these extra years between youth and now, I’ve had many
occasions (as in the second verse of I love to see the temple says) “to go
inside (someday).” And inside His Holy House, “I’ll Cov’nant with my
Father, I’ll promise to obey.”
So we go inside, to make covenants with our Father. But what is a
covenant? I know if I asked the primary kids, they would tell me it’s a two-
way promise. Which is true! The bible dictionary describes a covenant as
an agreement between……God and man; but….it is important to notice
that the two parties to the agreement do not stand in the relation of
independence and equal contractors. God in his good pleasure fixes the
terms, which man accepts.
So a covenant is an agreement between God and man, but they do not act
as equals in the agreement. God gives the conditions for the covenant, and
men agree to do what He asks them to do. God then promises men certain
blessings for their obedience.
I have come to understand covenants as a gift from God that holds positive
and negative consequences depending upon obedience to the covenant
made. My Father loves me and I feel that love through the covenants he
extends to me.
Some of my most cherished and sacred experiences have come inside of
the temple. I’ve been able to participate in temple baptisms when I was a
young woman and more recently to attend as a family and be baptized with
my girls. I’ve kneeled across the alter from Chris to be sealed to him for
time and all eternity. I’ve been able to be a part of friends and loved ones
weddings and sealings. And I’ve been able to take deceased family
members names to the temple to do their work.
To this point in my talk, it sounds like I have only ever had revelatory
experiences in the temple. While that is mostly true today, that has not
always been the case. The first time that I entered the temple to receive
my own endowment, I left feeling very overwhelmed. I had not really
prepared myself for the endowment. I left a bit confused and wanted
answers.
For the next few years, that is how the temple was for me. I attended, but
did not fully understand the covenants I had made or why certain things
were taught. I attended purely out of duty. My testimony of the gospel of
Jesus Christ was firm. I knew that God lived, He is my Father and that the
Book of Mormon was true. I knew that Joseph Smith was the prophet of
the restoration and that the priesthood was restored through him. I had felt
the power of the priesthood on numerous occasions in my life to that point.
I knew the stories of Jesus. I felt loved by Him and had a testimony of His
sacrifice. Like any good kid who grows up in Tempe, Arizona, I attended
the Easter pageant each year and would watch the New Testament come
to life right before my very eyes.
It wasn’t until several years later, as our family began to grow, that Chris
and I began to attend the temple weekly. By this time, we had moved to
Sugarhouse in downtown Salt Lake City and were far from family. We
were young and we were broke. Since we were first married we have
always set aside Friday evening as date night. It is a time for us to catch
up and be together in a way the rest of the week doesn’t allow. Well, when
you’re broke and far from family, our budget would only stretch far enough
to get a babysitter for the evening. So, Friday date night became temple
night. Each Friday after the babysitter would arrive, we’d drive the 19
blocks north and 4 blocks east to Salt Lake Temple Square, where we
would participate in an endowment session.
After each session we would linger in the celestial room. I began to ask
Chris questions. Sometimes he would have answers and it would help me
to understand certain parts of the endowment more fully. Other times he
did not have the answer and would reply, “That’s a really good question.
We should study and ponder that and come back next week to try and
understand more fully what that means.” Through this practice, my
understanding increased. But, I was also noticing that Chris and I were not
only growing in understanding but were growing closer to each other.
My testimony, the one that had sprouted as a child, felt like it was building a
stronger root system than ever before.
In his October general conference address President Russell M. Nelson
taught the following:
“The temple lies at the center of strengthening our faith and spiritual
fortitude because the Savior and His doctrine are the very heart of the
temple. Everything taught in the temple, through instruction and through the
Spirit, increases our understanding of Jesus Christ. His essential
ordinances bind us to Him through sacred priesthood covenants. Then, as
we keep our covenants, He endows us with His healing, strengthening
power.”
When I first attended the temple I had heard that the Savior, as President
Nelson said, was at the heart of the temple. But, I hadn’t really understood
how. The answer came as I studied the covenants I had made.
Specifically, the law of sacrifice, where we promise to sacrifice to support
the Lord’s work and repent with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
The law of sacrifice through the lens of the temple provided clarity for what
was laid out in the scriptures. But, had become even more clear. The
saviors sacrifice which he freely gave fulfilled my obligation to give an
offering of the “firstlings of my flocks”. The Savior directed and I have
covenanted with the Lord in the temple, my requirement was a broken
heart and a contrite spirit. I had made this covenant with the Lord
previously. When I was eight years old and baptized. Each Sabbath day I
have the opportunity to renew that covenant to take the Saviors name upon
me, to always remember him and keep his commandments. From my
baptism to the sacrament to the temple these covenants have kept me on
the path to return to him