Quotes About Temples and Temple Work
"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."
Howard W. Hunter - 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."
"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)
"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."
President Howard W. Hunter - 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
"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."
From "Temple in the Last Days", by Royden G. Derrick, p. 53
"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
"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"
President George Q. Cannon
"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"
"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).
Russell M. Nelson, "Young Adults and the Temple," Ensign, Feb. 2006, 12
"In our day, the steadying arm of the Lord reaches us through the ordinances of His holy temples."
Elder Robert D. Hales - Ensign, May 2003, 17
"When you come to the temple you will love your family with a deeper love than you have ever felt before. The temple is about families. As my wife, Karen, and I have increased our temple service, our love for each other and for our children has increased. And it doesn't stop there. It extends to parents, brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, forebears, and especially our grandchildren! This is the Spirit of Elijah, which is the spirit of family history work; and when inspired by the Holy Ghost, it prompts the turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers. Because of the priesthood, husbands and wives are sealed together, children are sealed to their parents for eternity so the family is eternal and will not be separated at death."
Richard H. Winkel, "The Temple Is about Families," Ensign, Nov. 2006, 9
"Enduring temptation is one of the greatest challenges. Jesus endured temptation but yielded not. (See Mosiah 15:5.) Christ withstood because He gave 'no heed' to temptations. (D&C 20:22.) You and I tend to dally over and dabble in temptations, entertaining them for a while, even if we later evict them. However, to give temptations any heed can set the stage for later succumbing."
Neal A. Maxwell, "Endure It Well," Ensign, May 1990, p. 34
"Each time we dedicate a temple, we remove part of the curse on the earth."
Truman G. Madsen, "The Temple and the Atonement" (in the book Temples of the Ancient World - a F.A.R.M.S. publication). - (Reference given: "The Prophet Joseph said the curse would not be taken off the earth all at once" - Eliza R. Snow, Women's Exponent 7 - July 30, 1878:50)
"We are never required to make convenants except in a setting where Divine grace, the extension of Christ's atonement, is promised to assist us in fulfilling them. With the covenants of baptism comes the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost. With the covenant of sacrament comes the promise of his Spirit to be with us 'always.' With the oath and covenant of the priesthood and its heavy responsibilities comes the conferral of priesthood gifts. With the solemn covenanting of temple worship comes 'an endowment of power.'"
Truman G. Madsen, "The Temple and the Atonement" (in the book Temples of the Ancient World - a F.A.R.M.S. publication)