Quotes on Temples
and
Temple Work 
Howard W. Hunter:
"Secondly, and in that same spirit, I also invite the members of the
Church
to establish the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of their
membership
and the supernal setting for their most sacred covenants. It
would
be the deepest desire of my heart to have every member of the Church
temple
worthy. I would hope that every adult member would be worthy of--and
carry--a
current temple recommend, even if proximity to a temple does not allow
immediate or frequent use of it. Let us be a temple-attending and
temple-loving
people. Let us hasten to the temple as frequently as time and
means
and personal circumstances allow. Let us go not only for our
kindred
dead, but let us also go for the personal blessing of temple worship,
for
the sanctity and safety which is provided within those hallowed and
consecrated
walls. The temple is a place of beauty, it is a place of
revelation,
it is a place of peace. It is the house of the Lord. It is holy
unto
the Lord. It should be holy unto us."
(Ensign Oct 1994)
"I realized that the blessings offered in this sacred place [the
Temple]
provide help needed by every parent in raising
children
today."
Patricia P.
Pinegar
(167th Annual General Conference)
"Another most significant way to enhance your capacity to understand
and
live eternal truth is through temple worship. Only by receiving
the
fullness of temple ordinances and living the covenants made there can
you
enter into the highest degree of glory and receive the greatest measure
of happiness eternally. Temple attendance has a calming,
settling,
consoling influence that distills peace and contentment. The
accompanying
family history work to identify ancestors to receive those ordinances
yields
similar blessings."
Richard G. Scott
BYU Education Week, 19 August
1997
The calming influence of the temple also helps us receive answers to
the
practical challenges and decisions of our lives. President Ezra
Taft
Benson said:
"By virtue of the sacred priesthood in me vested,...I promise you that,
with increased attendance in the temples of our God, you shall receive
increased personal revelation to bless your life as you bless those who
have died."
CR,
April 1987, p. 108
"The seen and the unseen
worlds are closely connected.
One
assists the other. Those who fail to partake of the privileges
and
blessings of temple work deprive themselves of some of the choicest
gifts
within the keeping of the Church."
John A. Widtsoe
(quoted by Boyd K. Packer in his book: The
Holy
Temple)
"You'll leave the temple better than you
arrived. I
promise."
President
Gordon B. Hinckley
St.
George Regional Conference, Nov. 14, 2002 (Deseret News excerpt)
President Howard W. Hunter:
"Let us prepare
every
missionary to go to the temple worthily, and make that experience an
even
greater highlight than receiving the mission call."
"The things that we
must
do and not do to be worthy of a temple recommend are the things that
ensure
that we will be happy as individuals and as families.
"Let us truly be a
temple-attending
and temple-loving people...We should not go only for our kindred dead,
but also for the personal blessings of temple worship, for the sanctity
and the safety that are within those hallowed and consecrated
walls.
As we attend the temple, we learn more richly and deeply the purpose of
life and the significance of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Let us make the temple, together with temple worship and temple
covenants
and temple marriage, our ultimate earthly goal and the supreme mortal
experience."
Ensign, Feb. 1995, p. 5
"Now let me
say
something to all who can worthily go to the house of the Lord.
When
you attend the temple and perform the ordinances that pertain to the
house
of the Lord, certain blessings will come to you: You will receive the
spirit
of Elijah, which will turn your hearts to your spouse, to your
children,
and to your forebears. You will love your family with a deeper
love
than you have loved before. You will be endowed with power from
on
high as the Lord has promised."
Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 254
From "Temple in the Last Days", by Royden G.
Derrick,
p. 53:
"In the temple, through
the power of the Holy Spirit, knowledge is transformed into
virtues.
A person who attends the temple regularly grows more patient, more
long-suffering,
and charitable. He becomes more diligent, more committed,
and more dedicated. He
develops
a greater capacity to love his wife and children and to respect the
good
qualities and the rights of others. He develops a greater sense of
values, becoming more honorable and upright in his dealings and
less critical of others. In the temple knowledge is transformed
into
feelings of the heart, resulting in actions that build character.
Thus, the family is strengthened and the community is uplifted to the
extent
of his influence."
"I promise you that all who faithfully attend to temple work will be
blessed
beyond measure. Your families
will draw closer to the Lord, unseen angels will watch over your loved
ones when Satanic forces tempt
them, the veil will be thin and great spiritual experiences will
distill
upon this people."
Vaughn J. Featherstone
"It
is certainly true that after we members have received our own
endowment, we usually return to the house of the Lord to dedicate our
time for the salvation of our ancestors. But, in the light of my
experiences in being close to the house of the Lord, I have come to
know that the Lord is urgently inviting all
members of His
church to prepare and to go to the temple, not only for their own
ordinances for salvation and for their ancestors, but also for
additional reasons. It has become my conviction that the temple is the
only “university” for men to prepare spiritually for their graduation
to eternal life. The temple is the place where the Lord wants us to
make a sincere evaluation of our mortal lives."
F. Enzio Busche (Ensign, May 1989, page 71)
"Prayers are
answered, revelation occurs, and instruction by the Spirit takes place
in the holy temples of the Lord."
Ezra Taft Benson (Ensign, May 1988,
page
85)
"Every time a temple
is
dedicated to the Lord , the darkness pushes further back, prison doors
are opened and light comes into the world."
President Spencer W. Kimball
"I hope that
everyone
gets to the temple on a regular basis. I hope your children over 12
years
of age have the opportunity of going to the temple to be baptized for
the
dead. If we are a temple-going people, we will be a better people, we
will
be better fathers and husbands, we will be better wives and mothers. I
know your lives are busy. I know that you have much to do. But I make
you
a promise that if you will go to the house of the Lord, you will be
blessed,
life will be better for you. Now, please, please, my beloved brethren
and
sisters, avail yourselves of the great opportunity to go to the Lord’s
house and thereby partake of all of the marvelous blessings that are
yours
to be received there (fireside, Lima, Peru, 9 Nov.
1996)."
Excerpts from Recent Addresses of President
Gordon
B. Hinckley "Ensign," July 1997, 73
"Then, in a spirit of love and
consecration,
we must extend ourselves in the work of redemption of the dead through
service in the temples of the Lord. This service more nearly approaches
the divine work of the Son of God, who gave his life for others, than
does
any other work of which I know."
Gordon B. Hinckley
"He Slumbers Not, nor Sleeps" -
Ensign,
May 1983, 8
President George Q. Cannon said:
"Every
foundation
stone that is laid for a temple, and every temple completed . . .
lessens
the power of Satan on the earth, and increases the power of God and
Godliness"
(Logan Temple
cornerstone
ceremony, 19 Sept. 1877; quoted in Nolan Porter Olsen,
Logan Temple: The First 100 Years [1978], 34).
Quoted
by David E. Sorenson, Oct. 1998 Gen. Conf. "Small Temples--Large
Blessings"
"The contemplation
of
the unbroken continuity of life "from eternity to eternity" is the very
purpose and function of the temple."
Hugh Nibley (Of All Things, 2nd Ed, Deseret
Book,
SLC, 1993, page 39)
“Until you have
received
the sacred [temple] ordinances of the gospel, you have not received all
of the wonderful blessings which this Church has to offer. The great
and
crowning blessings of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day
Saints are those blessings which come to us in the house of the Lord”
President Gordon B. Hinckley (meeting,
Worcester,Massachusetts,
16 Oct. 1998).
quoted
in “Recurring Themes of President Hinckley,” Ensign, June 2000, 18
"Every temple, be it large or
small, old or new, is an expression of our testimony that life beyond the grave is as
real and certain as is mortality."
President Gordon B.Hinckley ("This Peaceful
House of God," Ensign, May 1993, 74.)
"Some people want to keep one hand on the wall of
the temple while touching the world's 'unclean things' (Alma 5:57)
with the other hand. We must put both hands on the temple and
hold on for dear life. One hand is not even almost enough."
Bruce C.
Hafen, "The
Atonement: All for All," General
Conference, April 2004
"The temple is a house of
instruction-yes, even divine instruction-about God's eternal plan for
his children. In the temple one gains a superior perspective
about his personal relationship with his Maker and with the Savior-yes,
special knowledge about God and Jesus Christ, which is essential to the
obtaining of life eternal. 'And this is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent' (John 17:3)."
Robert
L. Simpson, "The
House of the Lord," Ensign, November 1980, p. 10
"The temple will be an
ever-present reminder that God intended the family to be eternal."
Ezra Taft Benson,
Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson
"As far as I know, no other people on the face of the earth do the
things that have been revealed unto this people in the house of the
Lord. It requires unselfishness of a consummate kind to go to the
house
of the Lord, to act in
behalf of someone you have never met, you've never known. . . . You go
there in his or her behalf. But something will happen to you when
you
do that. I make you a promise that every time you go to the
temple, you
will leave a better man or woman than you
were when you went inside the doors of the temple."
President
Gordon B. Hinckley - From
regional conference, St. George, Utah, Nov. 24, 2002
(Church
News - July 2, 2005)
"To those of you who do not have a temple recommend
and do not
attend the temple, I say that today should be your day of resolution.
Make up your mind that here and now you will go to work to qualify for
a temple recommend. That
may require repentance and forgiveness. It may require a change of
lifestyle. It will require greater activity in the Church and the
meeting of other obligations. But the cost in effort and means will be
as nothing compared with the blessings that will
be obtained"
President Gordon B. Hinckley
From member meeting, Sacramento California Temple
Groundbreaking, Aug. 22, 2004
(Church
News - July 2, 2005)
“From Adam to the time of Jesus, ordinances were
performed in temples
for the living only. After Jesus opened the way for the gospel to be
preached in the world of spirits, … work for the dead, as well as for
the living, has been done in temples” (Bible Dictionary, “Temple,” 781).