Good morning brothers and sisters, my name is Elder Healy. Sister Healy and I are full-time missionaries in the Missouri Independence Mission. My wife is the mission nurse, and I serve in the office. I have been asked to speak on finding Christ through attending the Temple.
For the last seven months I have had the privilege of also serving as a temple ordinance worker on Saturday afternoons. Serving there has been one of the highlights of my mission. For me, it has been a refuge from the challenges of this temporal world, which confronts all of us. Next Saturday will be my last shift serving in the Kansas City Temple, as we are returning home early next month. I will miss the peace I have felt there and the people that I have associated with, both my fellow temple workers and the patrons.
President Russell M. Nelson has told us, “My dear brothers and sisters, these are the latter days. If you and I are to withstand the forthcoming perils and pressures, it is imperative that we each have a firm spiritual foundation built upon the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
“So I ask each of you, how firm is your foundation? And what reinforcements to your testimony and understanding of the gospel are needed?
“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. And oh, how we will need His power in the days ahead.
“We have been promised that ‘if [we] are prepared [we] shall not fear.’ This assurance has profound implications today. The Lord has declared that despite today’s unprecedented challenges, those who build their foundations upon Jesus Christ, and have learned how to draw upon His power, need not succumb to the unique anxieties of this era.
“Please believe me when I say that when your spiritual foundation is built solidly upon Jesus Christ, you have no need to fear. As you are true to your covenants made in the temple, you will be strengthened by His power. Then, when spiritual earthquakes occur, you will be able to stand strong because your spiritual foundation is solid and immovable.”
This last week we have had a couple of very difficult issues arise in the mission. With one, a parent called to tell us that a missionary’s grandmother had suddenly passed away. With another, a missionary was diagnosed with a serious illness, one that will be with her the rest of her life. On Thursday I saw both these missionaries. In each case, the missionaries were striving to carry on with their missionary work. The challenges life had thrown at them suddenly, though causing them great sadness, was not debilitating. Their faith in Jesus Christ and the promises of their temple covenants are helping them to, as President Nelson noted, “stand strong” “when spiritual earthquakes occur.”
Brothers and sisters, those spiritual earthquakes have and will continue to occur in all our lives. The temple is our refuge from the storm. Take advantage of its close proximity, go often and enjoy the peace it affords.
President Nelson continues, “Temple ordinances and covenants are ancient. The Lord instructed Adam and Eve to pray, make covenants, and offer sacrifices. Indeed, ‘whenever the Lord has had a people on the earth who will obey His word, they have been commanded to build temples.’ The standard works are replete with references to temple teachings, clothing, language, and more. Everything we believe and every promise God has made to His covenant people come together in the temple. In every age, the temple has underscored the precious truth that those who make covenants with God and keep them are children of the covenant.
“Under the Lord’s direction and in answer to our prayers, recent procedural adjustments have been made. He is the One who wants you to understand with great clarity exactly what you are making covenants to do. He is the One who wants you to experience fully His sacred ordinances. He wants you to comprehend your privileges, promises, and responsibilities. He wants you to have spiritual insights and awakenings you’ve never had before. This He desires for all temple patrons, no matter where they live.
“When you bring your temple recommend, a contrite heart, and a seeking mind to the Lord’s house of learning, He will teach you.” (Oct. 2021, The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation)
Just prior to our leaving on our first mission as senior missionaries, Sister Healy and I attended the temple. During that session both of us felt that the Lord was trying to teach each of us something specific. For me it was from D&C 60:2, “But with some I am not well pleased, for they will not open their mouths, but they hide the talent which I have given unto them.” I took this as God’s expectation of me that I both share the message of the restored Gospel, and that I perform my mission’s work without the use of an interpreter. It had been decades (35 years) since I had spoken Indonesian as a young missionary. That prompting in the temple helped motivate me to study the language both prior to serving and almost every day during my mission. For my wife it was the feeling that the mission would require a significant sacrifice, perhaps of her health, which was something neither of understood until almost a year into our mission.
President Thomas S. Monson has said, “As I think of temples, my thoughts turn to the many blessings we receive therein. As we enter through the doors of the temple, we leave behind us the distractions and confusion of the world. Inside this sacred sanctuary, we find beauty and order. There is rest for our souls and a respite from the cares of our lives.
“As we attend the temple, there can come to us a dimension of spirituality and a feeling of peace which will transcend any other feeling which could come into the human heart. We will grasp the true meaning of the words of the Savior when He said: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. … Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’
“Such peace can permeate any heart—hearts that are troubled, hearts that are burdened down with grief, hearts that feel confusion, hearts that plead for help.” (Apr. 2015, Blessings of the Temple)
Brothers and sisters, as I contemplated giving this talk and thinking of my experiences of finding Christ in the temple and its ordinances, two examples immediately came to my mind, one recent and one not.
Being near the end of our mission here in Missouri, Sister Healy’s and my thoughts have begun to turn to what we should be doing next. Plans have been made to do a number of things with family members. We want very much to bolster our relationship with them and try to help strengthen their testimonies in our Savior and His established Church. With regards to one potential future plan, we were discussing it a week ago Friday evening. As both of us would be going to the temple the next day, Sister Healy with the senior missionaries and I with my temple shift, I suggested that we delay deciding until after we had each prayed about it in the temple, after which we could make the decision.
As it turned out the next day, I had a break for a few minutes in my temple ordinance worker schedule, during which I spent the time praying about our issue. Since I find “no” answers easier to recognize than “yes” answers, I asked that if our plan was not consistent with God’s will, that He let me know. Not feeling any specific answer, I began my next assigned duty on my shift schedule. During that process, I had the rather unique experience of meeting my wife at the end of her Endowment session. Helping administer the ordinances of the temple is always a privilege and wonderful experience. But coming away from that experience, I felt I had the added blessing of having received my answer.
Understanding the second temple experience benefits by understanding a bit of background to the story. Twenty-five years ago, we were living in Belgium. The ward we attended was for all those whose primary language was not either French or Flemish. This meant we had members from all over the world and in all economic conditions. One of the families I home taught was a non-member Serbian refugee and his two sons. his wife had died in an auto accident several years earlier. The two teenage sons had been baptized earlier in the year, and we had grown quite close to them. Just a few weeks before Christmas, the father, Alia, had been diagnosed with cancer. I was able to get copies of Alia’s medical files and obtain a second opinion from the doctors at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Unfortunately, the news I got back was that it was “time for your friend to prepare to meet his maker.” Interestingly, Alia decided to do just that. The young missionaries started teaching Alia the lessons. Sister Healy and I were fortunate to be able to participate in some of those lessons. In early January Alia was baptized and he faithfully attended church each week thereafter, when his health allowed, until he passed away that following summer.
Several years later, after the two boys had gone on missions and were attending BYU Idaho, Sister Healy and I had the privilege of attending the temple in Idaho Falls with Alia’s two sons. There we participated in the temple ordinances for Alia, his wife and both sets of grandparents. I had the privilege of being proxy for my friend Alia during the Endowment and Sealing sessions. All during the Endowment session I could feel Alia’s presence. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before. I could not see or touch him, but I could feel his presence next to me. Then during the Sealing session, Sister Healy and I knelt at the altar as proxies for Alia and his wife, first being sealed together and then to their two sons. All this was made possible because of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer.
Brothers and sisters, it is in the temple where we can be closest to God, it is where we can go to be taught by Him, and it is there where we and our families can receive the ordinances and make eternal covenants that make it possible for us to find our way back home to our Father in Heaven after this life. And I say these things, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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