The Temple and Ministering
Dear family, I want to talk to you about the temple.
It seems to me the last several conferences have emphasized three significant activities – ministering as the Savior ministered, making the temple a greater priority in our lives, and making our homes the center of Christ’s life and teachings.
The first two of these are what I would like to write about today – the temple as a place of ministering to the living and the dead.
We all remember what President Nelson said about ministering in conference, let me remind you of what he said about the temple:
Both of these, temple activity and ministering, are to prepare us and our families for the second coming of the Savior.
So, let me begin by telling you a story of one of my ancestors.
Some of you may have heard this story before. Because it has such wide applications, I have told it many times; to you I apologize.
Aethelred was one of the early kings of England. His grandfather, Alfred the Great, had unified England and driven the Viking invaders from her shores.
When Aethelred ascended the throne in 978, England was still at peace. Aethelred was only 10 years old at the time and totally unconcerned about affairs of state. He was most interested in hunting, fishing, riding, fencing - all the interests you would expect from a young man.
The first to recognize this weakness in English affairs were the Vikings. Thus, they once again prepared for war.
Unfortunately, Aethelred’s councilors weren’t very astute either.
Consequently, England was totally unprepared for war. In the end, Aethelred lost his kingdom and had to pay tribute to the Danes for many years thereafter. As a result, he came to be known in all the history books as Aethelred the Unready.
The take away from this story is always the same. We must be ready or great opportunities will pass us by - in school, in business, in spiritual matters.
In our situation today, President Nelson is telling us we must be ready for the second coming of Christ.
But this is not the end of the story. About 1975 Mary Lou and I were invited to do some special sealings in the Oakland, Calif. Temple. Many of the royal families in England were having sealings done for their families. They had had their temple ordinances done many years before, but their children had never been sealed to them. Thus, we were there to perform these sealings.
Mary Lou and I knelt across the altar as various royal couples were sealed to their children. Suddenly, the officiator read out the names of Aethelred the Unready and his wife.
We were astounded! I had told his story a dozen or more times, but here we were kneeling across the alter acting as proxies for him and his wife!
Suddenly he was not just a character in a story with a great moral ending, but a real human being to whom we were ministering.
I have wondered many times since, if this time he really was ready. I think probably he was.
Since President Nelson’s talk on ministering to the living and the dead, I have wondered who was sent to minister to Aethelred and his family.
Had someone ministered to him soon after his death? He was a Christian. Had he accepted the gospel and been waiting for a thousand years for someone to do his temple work so he could get out of his spiritual prison?
Or was the minister William Moore Allred, who was a direct descendent and the first of all Aethelred’s family to join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and be endowed.
William Moore Allred had joined the Church in1836 and was sealed in the Nauvoo Temple in 1846, as the saints were preparing the journey West.
Any way, I hope one day to know.
President Nelson has indicated that ministering as the Savior did and increasing temple activities are two keys to our being ready for the Second Coming. I think the temple can serve both.
First of all, the temple is a beautiful place to minister. The moment you walk through the temple doors you are surrounded by beauty. The Church has spared no expense in making it a celestial place of worship.
We see the finest of décor, beautiful lighting and chandeliers, murals that depict local flora and fauna, paintings depicting various scenes in the life of the Savior, hand sculptured carpets, stained glass windows, masterful woodworking, in short, everything to please the eye, gladden the heart and uplift the spirit. It is a beautiful place to minister.
The temple is also an ennobling and uplifting place to minister.
My grandfather was not an active member of the church as a young man. He was, as another grandmother used to say, a villain. When he was in his late thirties, he was sent to prison for a few months for selling whiskey to the Indians.
Not a happy time for his family, but when he got out, he was a changed man. He decided he was going to get active in the church and take his family to the temple.
Thus, with the help of a good bishop and stake president and others in the ward ministering to his family, he was able to do just that.
One of his sons, my father, worked as an officiator in the Salt Lake Temple for many years and the Jordan River Temple after it opened.
My mother said of her father-in-law, “He was one of the finest, gentlest, generous, and most caring men she had ever known.”
Yes, the temple is an ennobling and uplifting place to minister.
The temple is also a peaceful and comforting place to minister.
You finish your temple work and you set in the Celestial Room immersed in the comfort and peace of that holy place. Outside the world spins ever more wickedly, ever more out of control, ever more downward, but here in the temple the Holy Spirit resides. You feel it, and if you are mindful you can hear it whispering answers to your prayers and peace to your soul.
If you really listen, you may also hear a whisper of gratitude from those for whom you have ministered that session.
The temple is a peaceful and comforting place to minister.
The temple is also an instructive place to minister.
As we experience the endowment, we are instructed in very significant gospel doctrines. We come to understand the importance of free agency, the atonement of Jesus Christ, the principal people involved in the creation, the principle of return and report.
And we make covenants with the Lord to live moral lives, to sacrifice for others, to help build the kingdom of God on earth, to keep the commandments as outlined in the scriptures, and to learn all we need to know to enter back into the presence of our Father and his son Jesus Christ.
As we review these doctrines, perhaps the persons for whom we are ministering are reviewing them also. At least our ministering is providing the opportunity for them to do so.
Yes, the temple is an instructive place to minister for the living and the dead.
Finally, the temple is also healing place to minister to ourselves. Yes, we need to be ministered to, too.
We sit in the Celestial Room silently praying to be ministered to by the Savior – praying He will listen to our pleadings, heal our souls, forgive our sins and short comings, strengthen our resolve to do better, give us answers to our problems, help us to survive in the world outside.
And we look around us and we see many others with their heads bowed, silently praying also to be healed.
Yes, the temple is a place where we can be ministered to also, as well as a place for ministering to others.
Dear family, I would like to see us do as President Nelson has proposed and make the temple and family history a higher priority in our lives. Let us remember his comments from General Conference.
I close with my testimony that the temple is indeed a beautiful, inspiring, uplifting, peaceful, comforting, instructive, and healing place for ministering to the living, the dead, and ourselves.
