I preface this article with this. I have been a temple worker and in the past 3 years since returning from my mission I have visited 65 different Temples and I have gone over 200 times, I love the Temple! What I am saying is 100% ok to talk about outside of the temple. Here are 4 things I wish I was told about the Temple before I was Endowed!
1st Go to the Temple again as soon you can.
When you receive your endowment often it is a big ordeal with friends and family coming together to go with you. In the hustle and bustle of the day often you miss the subtle things that happen, by going to the Temple again as soon as you can, it will give you the chance to better understand the ordinances you have just performed and the covenants you have entered into.
Don’t forget to do initiatories! Often members go back for an endowment session and completely forget about initiatories, my brother-in-law did not do any for over 5 years after he received his endowment. They only take about 30 minutes to do 5 vicarious initiatories, but they are jammed packed full of blessings!
“The supreme benefits of membership in the Church can only be realized only through the exalting ordinances of the temple. These blessings qualify us for “thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers” in the celestial kingdom.”
President Russell M. Nelson.
2nd The Temple is NOT Secret, even if most Members treat it that way.
This is by far the biggest misconception by the older members of the church, they will tell you “The Temple is sacred not secret” but then they treat it like it is a secret. There is absolutely no doctrinal foundation for treating the Temple like a secret. The Temple is very sacred but other than a few very select things we covenant not to disclose, everything else can be talked about outside of the Temple within the proper setting.
The Temple is Sacred, but we need to start approaching it like we do the Sacred Grove. The Sacred Grove is sacred but we don’t treat it secretly. We actually seek to explain the basics of why the Sacred Grove matters to Mormonism, and more importantly why it matters to us. We can, and should explain the temple to our friends the same way. Here is an example of how Brigham Young explained the endowment as quoted by President Boyd K. Packer in the Oct 2007 Ensign, Come to the Temple.
“Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.”
~Brigham Young
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