Blessings of the Temple

D.C. 109 has the dedicatory prayer offered at the Kirtland Temple. It's very instructive about the reasons to attend the temple. I just made notes on what I thought were the main 33 messages in those verses. I'm bolding those that list blessings for attending the temple or things that the temple can do to help people. The point is, it's worth it to get there:

1) Recognizes the Lord's involvement in all lives and his commandment to build temple

2) ask Lord to accept the temple

3) Repeat purpose of temple - to help people learn through study and faith and be a house of prayer, fasting, faith, learning, glory, order, God

4) send thy glory on this people

5) people feel God's power and recognize temple's God's house

6) people taught words of widom and seek learning by study and faith

7) grow up in thee and receive fulness of Holy Ghost

8) prepared to obtain every needful thing

9) house become house of order, prayer, learning, faith, etc.

10) no unclean thing come into the house

11) when people transgress speedily repent and return and be restored to blessings

12) servants armed with power and assistance of God and angels

13) ready to bear truth of Gospel

14) no weapon formed against them shall prosper

15) no combination of wickedness shall prevail over them

16) confound those who fight against church and make their works ineffective

17) servants suffer from bearing record of God and gospel

18) deliver from yoke of persecution

19) forgive transgressions of the people

20) seal the anointings done

21) bless with gift of tongues and filled with glory

22) give servants a testimony of the covenant

23) remember the persecuted Saints

24) help the mob repent or destroy them

25) have mercy on all nations, and our nation's rulers, and establish the constitution

26) remember all people

27) help other stakes grow

28) help children of Jacob be gathered/redeemed from this hour; Judah return, and other lineage of Jacob repent

29) remember Joseph Smith

30) remember his family

31) remember the presidents of the church and their families

32) remember all the church and their families that the church may become great and fill the earth

33) help church be pure and ready for the Second Coming to be caught up to meet the Savior

Here's a few of my thoughts:

If you want to be assured that you'll repent quickly after transgressing, be a temple attender.

If you want to know that the church is God's church and the temple is truly God's house, be a temple attender.

If you want to be prepared for the "needful things" that life may throw your way, be they difficult or easy, be a temple attender.

If you want to be a great learner, be a temple attender.

If you want a testimony of the covenant of the Lord to be with his people and love his children, be a temple attender.

If you want to grow in spirituality and have the Holy Ghost as a companion, be a temple attender.

If you want to be a powerful missionary, be a temple attender.

If you want help to overcome wickedness or to be assured that you won't falter when great temptation comes your way, be a temple attender.

If you want to be ready for the Second Coming, be a temple attender.

I saw all of the above promises in those verses in D.C. 109. I have not attended the temple since moving to this area, but we have a plan in place to attend regularly starting next week, and I am excited about it.

Enjoy the temple. As President Monson said, it's worth every effort to make it to the temple.

Prophet - Rescuing the People by showing he cares

I was listening to the interview of Heidi Swinton, who wrote President Monson's biography today. It was a very good interview and got me excited to read it after I'm done reading my current book (Bill Simmons' book on basketball - a little vulgar but also extremely well researched on my favorite sport).

I was impressed by how he consistently tries to meet with people and talk to them and let them know he cares. When I think about President Monson, one clear lesson is that just by letting people know you care, you can help them. It's a reason to always do home teaching and a reason to visit people. It shows you care.

In the interview, Heidi tells the story of a church member, Henry Burkhardt, who spent a lot of time with President Monson in Germany as he was the temple president and mission president for years. President Monson made a lot of promises to the German people about having all the blessings of the gospel even while there was a full communist reign there. Those promises came true with the blessings of the temple, which is incredible considering communism was still strong at the time. When Heidi asked Henry Burkhardt what the most incredible experience he had with President Monson, he replied, "Dec 20, 1979 was the date. My wife had spent 9 weeks in the hospital and wasn't getting better. That's when word got to President Monson about her sickness. He hopped on a plane the next day and we went and gave a blessing to my wife."

I am impressed by that. He cared about people so much.

I heard a story about when President Monson visited Spokane WA for a stake conference. During the conference he went out of his way to go visit the home of a faithful stake patriarch who was sick.

I've also seen him shake hands for over an hour at the end of a regional conference. He cares about people. It's obvious.

I was also impressed by how he wrote so many things about his life and experiences in journals. If someone as busy as him makes time to write in journals, I should to. It probably enlarges the memory, crystallizes thinking and experiences, and creates a record.

I love our church leaders and in particular the prophet. I know he is who he says he is, God's representative on earth. I know Jesus Christ leads the church through his prophet.

Have a great Sunday tomorrow.

True Accounts

I was listening to LDS Conversations yesterday and in the Quentin Cook interview there was a section where he talked about Pres. Monson's influence on Preach My Gospel. Pres. Monson read it and said, "there's no 'true accounts' in here. Missionaries need true accounts". I'm pretty sure he might modern-day stories emphasizing the principles being taught.

That obviously sounds like him, but I was particularly struck by his point. We remember stories, and they illustrate the validity of principles. Over the last couple conferences I've tried to really think, "what is the point Pres. Monson is trying to make with this story?" For instance, his story about the lady traveling from the communist country she was in to West Germany and losing her kids along the way but not losing faith teaches us that we can all keep the faith no matter what happens. His latest story about the man who worked for 6 years away from home to send his family to the temple 2500 miles away teaches a great lesson as well. It's pretty hard for me to hear that story and not realize I can go to the temple at least once a month. It makes me want to "sacrifice" to go to the temple. (Hard to call a very good thing for us a sacrifice.)

It also makes me want to choose good true accounts to share in my talk this Sunday. It can help illustrate in a way that only saying principles can't. SAying, "you have to take on the full armor of God" is perhaps less powerful than saying, "I have a friend who didn't take on the full armor of God despite putting on some of it, and he didn't end up okay."

Have a great day. Remember the value of sharing "true accounts."

Examples of those who didn't put on the whole armor of God

So, I want to have a potential list of people who didn't have on the whole armor of God, so here's some thoughts.

King David - I watched a brief video about him yesterday on lds.org and it shows him being sneaky about watching Bathsheba and almost deciding not to watch her. Very good portrayal. It made me think of a good friend of mine and a story he told. Bro. Grimmer hunted and fished in Alaska. One day while hunting he had a strong feeling that he was in a very dangerous situation. He turned around and saw a bear very close to him. He ran away as quickly as possible.

Years later he was having dinner in a place as part of a trip and heard some music come on. He had the exact same feeling at that time (that he was in a very dangerous situation). A stripper was actually about to come out on stage. Once again he ran away as quickly as possible. He commented that he isn't sure which situation was more dangerous.

I appreciate the takeaway that the Lord will warn us to help us avoid sin if we're doing our best.

3 Witnesses - I believe I've written about them before but the 3 witnesses appear to have had deep testimonies about one thing (Book of Mormon) and relatively shallow testimonies about everything else. Their testimonies didn't grow as well as they should have beyond the Book of Mormon. I suspect that they had a strong testimony of the Book but did not learn daily from the Book. Otherwise, their shield of faith would have grown much larger and stronger. The Lord pushed them to be more committed (David Whitmer was among the first asked to live the law of consecration for example), but none of them made it out of Missouri with their testimonies of the Gospel and Church.

Corianton - I think he was actually a pretty good guy in most respects. He did get called on a mission. He did end up being very faithful. However, he had a couple flaws, he was very proud and he fell for one woman in particular. Here's the account from Alma 39:

2For thou didst not give so much heed unto my words as did thy brother, among the people of the ^aZoramites. Now this is what I have against thee; thou didst go on unto boasting in thy strength and thy wisdom.

3And this is not all, my son. Thou didst do that which was grievous unto me; for thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the ^aharlot Isabel.

4Yea, she did ^asteal away the hearts of many; but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted.

Side note: what if Isabel wasn't a professional harlot but just a promiscuous woman. Is the prophet calling her name right here? Potentially a little funny....

President Monson seemed to address this in his Priesthood Session Message - he told us to avoid numerous sins and also asked us to not do anything of which we wouldn't be proud. It's just not enough to have on half or even most of the armor of God.

I will talk a little bit more about how to put that armor on tomorrow....

Have a good day.