Saturday afternoon my husband and I went to the Bountiful Temple to participate in a sealing session and found the sealer assigned to our session was the bishop who interviewed me to go to the temple for the first time. I was twenty three years old, graduated from college, working full time, serving as a young women’s advisor and continuing to pursue one of the joys of my life, family history.
As I connected my family and came to know the relatives whose lives had shaped mine, I felt their persistent desire to make covenants in the house of the Lord. I was not going on a mission or getting married, the primary times most went to the temple at that time, yet it was the diligent promptings of my ancestors that caused me to go to my bishop asking for the opportunity to make covenants myself so that I
could more readily help them do the same. I did not take making covenants lightly and tried to learn all that I could. I read The Holy Temple by Elder Boyd K. Packer multiple times, studied the temple preparation manual and felt I understood and was ready for what the Lord would ask me to do. In this frame of mind, I went to the temple to make covenants with God.
What I had failed to consider was what the Lord wanted to give me. I was astounded and overwhelmed by the blessings given in His holy house, blessings that are not conditioned on the circumstances of our lives, what happens or does not happen. He knows what He has promised and all of His promises are conditioned on our faithful reliance on the commandments, merits, and mercy of Jesus Christ. He is the guarantor of our covenants.
“Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find Him in the temple. You will feel His mercy. You will find answers to your most vexing questions. You will comprehend the joy of His gospel….There is no limit to the Savior’s capacity to help you.” (President Russell M. Nelson, October 2024).
Come to the temple.