touching the temple

 

as most of you know, i am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints (l.d.s.). as a member, i serve in my ward, or congregation, in whatever capacity i am needed. currently, i am a teacher in the relief society, or the women’s organization, and this sunday i am giving a lesson based on these two talks, here and here. they are excellent talks if you have a moment to read them!

 

the topic is temple worship and how to make our homes a sacred place. 

 

in preparation for my lesson i have made a greater effort to “attend” the temple.  when i say “attend” i don’t necessarily mean within the walls of the temple, though i am doing that as well. but this week i have taken the opportunity to visit the temple grounds with our girls. so far, we have been twice this week. our prophet, president thomas s. monson, once counseled, “as we touch the temple, the temple will touch us.” so, i decided to take the girls to the temple so they could “touch” the temple.

 

on both occasions, we have had a great experience. on one of the visits we sat in the shade of a tree and talked about and sang the children’s hymn “i love to see the temple”. i asked the girls what we can learn from the lyrics of the song. here are some of the things we came up with:

• we are children of God
• families can be together forever when sealed in the temple
• we go to the temple to pray, to listen, to feel the spirit
• the temple is God’s house
• we make promises in the temple
• the temple is a place of beauty
• we must prepare to enter the temple

on another occasion we sat in front of the fountain and talked about the significance of the water and how it represents the “living water” of Christ of which we can partake of to never thirst again.

 

on both visits, we walked to the back of the temple and touched the walls of the temple just outside of the celestial room. i told them about the quote from our prophet about touching the temple and asked them what it meant to have “the temple touch us”.

 

during both visits the thing that struck me was how quiet and reverent they were the whole time we were on the temple grounds. i know, i know you all think that my children are always well behaved and never yell or whine, but sadly they do! ;-)

 

if you live near a temple, i highly recommend taking your young children to walk the temple grounds with you. it is a great place to teach them about the importance of the temple and to help them prepare, while they are young, to enter the temple. it is a wonderful place to feel the spirit and let the peace of the temple touch you.  our girls, along with myself, look forward to our next visit.