A new endowment on the twin-tracked roller coaster of my life

Last weekend was delightful. My daughter was endowed, her next step in preparing to enter the MTC in just about a month.

Last weekend was awful. My 15-year-old son announced (again) that he no longer wants to attend church, that he does not believe.

I remember a year and a half ago when my oldest daughter was endowed. En route to the temple we learned another of our children was in the middle of a situation that we could neither prevent nor mitigate, but that has resulted in significant issues for him and for our family.

I remember the day of my own endowment. I went alone to the Provo Temple (well, not really alone; I was with my freshman roommate from BYU; we were both entering the MTC in a day or two). My parents were half a world away living in Nigeria (where my dad was on a foreign assignment for work). It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that he might have actually wanted to be with me on that special day, and it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have wanted to be with him, either. But upon reflection, I realize that conditions were not ideal.

I remember the week our family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. It was just under a year from our baptism, and we drove the 1,800 miles to Salt Lake straight through. As we arrived in “the valley,” there were no roses blooming beneath our feet, and there seemed to be little love in that old blue station wagon; exhaustion fed bickering and sniping in the car.

They say that when someone goes to the temple that the adversary does what he can to disrupt the day. And I suppose that is true, though I suspect the adversary plants the seeds of destruction early and cares for them over time, rather than just trying to fowl things up on the big day. (That said, I have read a history of the Logan Temple, written for its centennial, which reported that early settlers of Cache Valley sai that they did better at getting to the temple if they didn’t announce their plans out loud. If they announced their plans, farm machinery seemed to break or cattle got out of pens and prevented attendance on the intended day. If they simply laid down their tools and went, they seemed to get there more easily.)

I don’t know why my life seems to be on diverging tracks of a roller coaster some days. Except for this: there must needs be opposition in all things. And the Savior has already descended below everything that I might endure in my life. It seems there needs to be that equal and opposite force in our lives. And the adversity of this life works for my experience.

And I know this: the peace that I feel in the temple –- from that first visit before I was 10, to my own endowment, to attending with my daughters for their endowments –- is real. And it is at the heart of my testimony of the gospel, come what may.

For some, the Book of Mormon is the keystone of testimony. If the Book of Mormon is true, they say, then Joseph was a prophet and the church is true. That is not my calculus, but I understand how some people make that connection.

For me, the calculus is similar, but different. The temple represents, according to President Hunter, the supreme mortal experience:

Let us truly be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people. We should hasten to the temple as frequently, yet prudently, as our personal circumstances allow. We should go not only for our kindred dead but also for the personal blessing of temple worship, for the sanctity and 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, with temple worship and temple covenants and temple marriage, our ultimate earthly goal and the supreme mortal experience (“A Temple Motivated People,” Ensign, February 1995).

Elsewhere, he taught that the temple is the great symbol of our membership in the church.

I have had enough spiritual experiences there to know for myself of the divine influence of that ritual. I have shared some of those experiences with a select few people in my life. Some I have shared with no one. But because of what I have felt and experienced in the temple, I can comfortably speak of knowing its divine roots and impact.

Like President Hunter, I wish that all members – especially my children -- might find the peace of the temple that I have found, and yet I know not everyone will (not even everyone who attends the temple will). And so I also hope that in His grand design, the Lord can sort this out in the eternities. And that hope is borne by my faith that He will.

More apostolic counsel some might have missed...

Last week I blogged about apostolic counsel regarding beards. I must say, there were lots of hits to that post – it rose to one of my top ten posts in two days, and over the weekend it hit the top five. This one might not be so interesting. But I thought I’d note some other apostolic counsel that might have gone unnoticed.

Elder Scott spoke about temple worship in 2009. His talk is here.

In his talk, Elder Scott lists ten things we can do to improve our temple worship.

Number six on his list:

Remove your watch when you enter a house of the Lord.

Now, I attend the temple pretty regularly. And lots of people I see haven’t removed their watches. I’ve not heard anyone repeat Elder Scott’s counsel in any meetings. But I try to remember to take off my watch when I’m in the temple. Why? Because that bit of counsel is really helpful to me. It helps to center me on the moment that I am in the temple. I’m less tempted to think into the future to the next three things on my day’s agenda. And the act of removing my watch is a physical reminder of the timelessness of the work I do in the temple.

Do I believe that the removal of my watch when entering the temple is a commandment?

Nope.

Why not? An apostle said it in conference.

If it were a commandment, as I suggested in my last post, I suspect it would have been discussed more in conference and in policy documents from the church.

Is it good counsel?

You bet. I try to follow it, and it helps me to feel more “present” in the temple, just as Elder Scott said it would.

What about all those people wearing watches in the temple session?

What about them? They are not my responsibility. Maybe they didn’t pick up on Elder Scott’s counsel. Maybe they just forgot this time around to remove their watch. Maybe for some reason they need to wear a watch. In reality, it doesn’t make any difference at all to my temple worship unless I worry about it. Which I don’t.

I don’t think someone who wears a watch in the temple is making a grave error. Maybe for him or her the counsel isn’t as important because a watch is not a distraction as it is for me.


By the way, here’s Elder Scott’s complete list. There’s some really good stuff here:

Understand the doctrine related to temple ordinances, especially the significance of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

While participating in temple ordinances, consider your relationship to Jesus Christ and His relationship to our Heavenly Father. This simple act will lead to greater understanding of the supernal nature of the temple ordinances.

Always prayerfully express gratitude for the incomparable blessings that flow from temple ordinances. Live each day so as to give evidence to Father in Heaven and His Beloved Son of how very much those blessings mean to you.

Schedule regular visits to the temple.

Leave sufficient time to be unhurried within the temple walls.

Rotate activities so that you can participate in all of the ordinances of the temple.

Remove your watch when you enter a house of the Lord.

Listen carefully to the presentation of each element of the ordinance with an open mind and heart.

Be mindful of the individual for whom you are performing the vicarious ordinance. At times pray that he or she will recognize the vital importance of the ordinances and be worthy or prepare to be worthy to benefit from them.

Recognize that much of the majesty of the sealing ordinance cannot be understood and remembered with one live experience. Substantial subsequent vicarious work permits one to understand much more of what is communicated in the live ordinances.

Realize that a sealing ordinance is not enduring until after it is sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise. Both individuals must be worthy and want the sealing to be eternal.

New African Temples and Me

I know that several new temples were announced in conference, and as interesting as good fishing in Wyoming sounds to me (btw, interesting is that word your mother taught you to use when you couldn’t think of a nice one), it was the two new African temples that caught my attention.

I have never been to Africa, but my parents lived in Lagos, Nigeria while I was on my mission in the late 1970’s. During those years President Kimball announced the revelation on the extension of the priesthood to all worthy men of the church.

I have in my missionary journal a letter from my mother in which she writes:

Yesterday, Sunday, August 20, 1978 marked a day of history.

On Friday, Brother Merrill Bateman [then a BYU professor] and Edwin Q. Cannon, first counselor in the International Mission presidency arrived in Lagos. They visited us, Brother Miller, a Brother Miller-Aganemi who became a member of the church while doing graduate work in Utah. He is a native Nigerian and is, of course, black. Yesterday [we] held a REAL meeting. [My folks had been meeting just the two of them each week, with Brother Miller joining them a time or two a month.] Sacrament was observed, testimonies and one calling and setting-apart. And this is the “first.” Your Dad was called to be Nigerian Group Leader, to locate those Nigerian men who were baptized during their educational periods in the U.S. and have since returned to this country. These men will now have the opportunity to realize the priesthood.

I would never have imagined that my convert parents would be on the cutting edge of the history of the church. To be sure, they were on the edge. Two senior missionary couples later came to Nigeria and Ghana and did the heavy lifting regarding the initial growth of the church there. They visited with my folks from time to time, but the real work was far from Lagos. But decades later temples came to Ghana and to Nigeria.

I’ve been interested in the development of the church in Africa since my parents were there. An additional temple in South Africa is a great thing. And a temple in the Democratic Republic of Congo is awesome to me. More blessings closer to more people. The Johannesburg South Africa Temple is 350 miles from Durban, and over 2,000 miles from Kinshasa.

I look forward to more African temples in the future.

Temple blessing

Sometimes when I visit the temple, I seek a specific blessing – confirmation of a decision I'm considering, help with an issue I'm confronting, or peace for my troubled heart. This past weekend was one of those times. And the blessing came, at least in part.

I went this time with specific questions, looking for guidance and comfort regarding something going on in my life. As I sat in the endowment room prior to the beginning of the session, I reflected on my questions, saying a silent prayer that I might be tuned in to listen for help that might come. In fact, I was so preoccupied with my concerns at one point that others must have thought I had fallen asleep, but I tuned in soon enough.

Part of the endowment session is a prayer, offered normally for those whose names are on the prayer roll of the temple. Patrons may include names on the prayer roll, and members can even phone in names to be included. While the prayers follow a specific pattern, they are not prescribed; their content is up to the person offering them and his inspiration.

The prayer in my session was so specific that it seemed perfectly tailored to the questions I had brought with me to the temple that day. It was unique from other prayers I had heard in that circumstance; I had never heard certain elements of this prayer in such a setting before. As I listened to it, I felt the Lord's love pour on me like the balm of Gilead. There was no voice to answer my specific question, but rather simply the knowledge that the Lord had heard my cry: I knew He was there. (That's what Isaiah 58 promises: that we'll cry and know He is there.)

After that experience, I've had repeated promptings through the weekend (including in the talks and lessons I heard in church the next day, in conversations with my spouse, and during the course of my personal prayers) that have shaped how I think I will respond to my challenges. But the prayer in the temple was a dramatic and significant blessing for me.

A first visit to the temple

Last week I received an early Christmas gift as my daughter received her endowment. She is not getting married and she is not going on a mission. She just decided it was time for her to take this step in her life. Fortunately her bishop and her stake president agreed.

She is not my first child, but she is the first of my children to go through the temple. It was a delightful experience to be there with her on that remarkable day. It was not an easy day, and it made me think of two or three other difficult days I've been in the temple.

When our family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, it was after driving nearly non-stop from Pittsburgh, PA, to Salt Lake City. My parents were exhausted as we looked for the KOA campground near Point of the Mountain, and to listen to us in the car that evening, one would never have guessed we wanted to be together for another ten minutes let alone for eternity. (In fairness, I assume we won't be stuck in a 1964 Buick station wagon for eternity.) Yet we were sealed the next day, and it was a singularly spiritual event.

On my own endowment day, as I've blogged here, I was sprayed by a truck cleaning the sidewalk as I walked to the Provo Temple. But the sun dried me off and I survived.

On my wife's endowment day, we had missed the information that I also should arrive early at the temple (I knew I had to be in the session, of course) and got a frantic phone call from her saying that I needed to be at the temple RIGHT NOW. I made it in time enough.

And there was plenty of external excitement on the day my daughter was endowed, but we rode those waves all the way to the temple door, and stepped gently into the peaceful arms of the spirit of temple worship.

Going to the temple was not, for my daughter, a quick choice. It was a lifetime of choices that led to her being there that day, and I am grateful for those choices in her life and to those who helped her make them. Yes, her mother and I had some positive influence on her, but we do not take credit for her choices; they are hers alone. But we are proud of her (in that acceptable post-Benson/Uchtdorf sort of way).

It was very cool for me to sit through the session and see it with new eyes, wondering how she saw what I saw. And it is wonderful that she is planning to go back again tomorrow.

On turning one

I posted my first entry on this blog a year ago today. I had no idea what to expect. I started my blog for a number of reasons. First, I was driven to write, and blogging allows me to do that. Second, in an article in the October 2009 issue of the Ensign encouraged us to participate in the online dialog about the church.

I said I would blog about my own experience in and with the church, and I've tried to stay true to that mission. A few of my posts have strayed slightly, but in most of them I try to look at my own experiences and what they have taught me.

I've been surprised at the response. Since I started blogging, there have been well over 5,000 views of my blog. My most-viewed entry was coincidentally posted on my birthday, October 4, 2010, about my experience receiving my endowment in the Provo temple before my mission. I think that one got so many views because it was cited in a Mormon Times review of recent blog posts.

I've been recently surprised when people I know tell me they've been reading my blog. It pleases me to know that someone finds it interesting. I suppose if I were more controversial or hit more "hot" topics I might generate more comments, but for now I'm ok with where we are.

Looking back, here are a five of my favorite entries:

Face to Face With Apostles in which I talk about three very brief personal interactions I've had with members of the Quorum of the Twelve

Salt Lake Sealing in which I talk about my experience as a child being sealed to my parents

A Memory of Yom Kippur in which I chronicle a vivid memory of the atonement's becoming real for me

Might I Be Wrong? in which I share a question that is one of the most helpful in my relationships with others

Adam and Eve As Co-Parents in which I discuss the value of moms and dads working together as parents

Thanks for reading!

Temple Memories -- Washington DC

Fourth in a series of Temple Memories, inspired by the new Temples booklet which came as the October Ensign.



I was in high school when the Washington DC Temple was dedicated. Along with other primary children, I'd contributed change to help fund its building. I did not attend the dedication itself because of school conflicts, but I went within the year on my only trip to do baptisms for the dead.

My sisters and I made the five-hour drive with a family group sheet that included our grandparents as parents. We had misunderstood the policy and believed that we could bring that family group record to the temple and do the baptisms without having the names cleared first. I think it hurt the poor sister in the baptistery to tell us we couldn't do the baptisms than it hurt us. She did mention, however, that there was another group coming to do baptisms, and perhaps we could join them. We did join them.

I don't remember anything about the group, but I do remember the experience of being baptized multiple times, and of the repeated confirmations. The temple worker who performed the confirmations spoke very quickly as he said the prayer and read the names. On just one of the names he stumbled, and the whole process was over almost before it began. As I stood up to leave he told me that he wondered if when he stumbled on a name if it meant that person was not ready to accept the baptism and confirmation that had just been performed. I didn't answer him and thought to myself that maybe he'd just stumbled on the name because sometimes that happens. But I allowed for the fact that I didn't have any evidence either way, so perhaps he could be right.

I returned to the Washington DC Temple almost ten years later. Living again in Pittsburgh for graduate school brought us back to that temple district. Attending was not simple, since it meant sorting out child care, overnight arrangements and paying for the trip (we were hungry grad students, after all!). Fortunately my wife had an aunt in the area who was a great help on some of our trips.

On one occasion, in response to an invitation from our bishop, we prepared for a ward temple trip. The idea was that every ward member should somehow participate – preparing names, attending sessions, doing baptisms, or providing other service to allow others to participate. He encouraged me to invite my parents, who had since moved from that ward, to come with us.

I prepared names for my father's aunts and uncles and their parents and submitted them. On our day in the temple, baptisms were performed, we and other ward members did endowment work, and then at the end of the day, my parents, my sister, my wife and I found ourselves in a small sealing room where we sealed those aunts and uncles to their parents. Aside from my own sealing to my parents and my sealing to my wife, it was one of the choicest experiences I've had in the temple. My father, who knew these aunts and uncles when he was a boy, said he imagined his aunt Ethyl in the room embracing each of her siblings after his or her sealing to their parents. Through the experience we felt such a closeness to my father's grandmother Annie that we chose that name for our oldest daughter. And that tie to her has propelled us to do more research and more temple work on her line since.

On that day in the temple, my heart was turned not only to my "fathers" – the ancestors whose work we did, but also to my own father who was there in the room with me. I felt a spiritual closeness to him that new to me, and it was quite a gift in my life. Though he was ever faithful since his conversion to the gospel, he did not speak easily about spiritual things, but his sharing his vision of his Aunt Ethyl in that sacred place was a treasure.

Provo Endowment

This is third of a series of posts on my own temple experiences, inspired by the new Temples booklet issued in place of the October Ensign. The prior posts are here and here.

Like most young men who serve missions, I received my endowment shortly before entering the MTC. In my case, it was the day before. I was endowed in the Provo Utah Temple, and accompanying me that day was my college freshman roommate, who was also receiving his endowment, and who was also entering the MTC the next day (though we didn't go to the same mission).

I suppose I would have preferred to go to the temple with my folks, but my dad was working out of the country and could not make a trip home before I left to go to the Washington DC Temple. And it did not bother me in any way that he could not.

As my friend and I walked from our motel to the temple that morning, we encountered a truck that was cleaning the sidewalk outside the Marriott Center on BYU's campus. I assumed the driver saw us and would let us pass, but my friend thought he would spray us with water, which he did! I was about to get mad when my friend laughed it off and said that sort of thing always happened on one's first trip to the temple. (Indeed I've since heard far more significant stories of hardship associated with that first trip.) By the time we arrived at the door to the temple, we were dry.

If the kind folks at the Provo Temple were concerned about our arriving without escorts, they didn't say anything about it. I did notice that they took great care not to lose us, and I suppose our big "Own Endowment" tags pinned to our shirts helped with that.

My bishop had done a pretty good job of preparing me for that first visit. Without giving too much detail, he helped me be aware of what would happen and in what order so that I was not surprised at any step of the way. I don't know if he gave me the advice or not, but somewhere along the way I decided that there was no way I was going to remember everything, so I decided just to let it wash over me and I tried to capture feelings and images rather than specific points along the way. I figured I'd be back again a few times over the next two months. That strategy worked for me, and I have recommended it to other first time attenders I have known.

The spirit of the temple was amazing to me. I was reminded repeatedly of how I had felt in the Salt Lake Temple nine years (almost to the day) earlier. I certainly came away with plenty of questions, and without an experienced escort, I had no one to ask, but that didn't trouble me, either. I do remember the kindness of two sisters who worked in the temple and seemed to keep their eyes on my friend and me throughout our day. They made sure we were on the right escalator and headed into the right room, and they whispered gentle instruction to us about where we could and could not talk and what we could or could not discuss.

Of course during my stay at the MTC, I did get to return each week, so in the course of that time I had nine visits to the temple in as many weeks. I appreciated a meeting with the temple president the first day I attended as a missionary in which we could ask any question we wanted. I was too timid to ask my questions, but some of them were asked by others, and his answers satisfied me at the time.

My impressions as a boy had been confirmed. The temple was a place of peace, a place of happiness, and now a place of learning and of service. And I still found myself wanting to return.

Salt Lake Sealing

I was just about 8 weeks from my 10th birthday when we drove to Salt Lake to be sealed. We had been members of the church less than a year, but our mission president had petitioned for us to go early. Only many years later did I see the letter from Elder Ezra Taft Benson to our mission president granting the permission that we go early.

We were baptized in September, but went to the temple in August because that's when Dad could get a week away and when my siblings and I wouldn't have school conflicts. We drove out and back pulling our six-man travel trailer behind the station wagon. My parents drove nearly straight through from Pittsburgh, and as an adult now I can only imagine how fatiguing the trip must have been.

We stayed at a KOA campground just north of Point of the Mountain, and on Tuesday morning we all drove together to the temple. My older brother, two older sisters and I were ushered in to a waiting area while my parents went through their endowment session. I don't remember much, except that we were dressed in white while we waited, and we were entertained by another much younger boy (a toddler, I think) while he waited for his parents, too.

When the time finally came, a sister walked us to our sealing room. I have no idea the route we took, since it was my first of only three times in the Salt Lake Temple (and the other two would be as an adult for weddings). I remember lots of chandeliers, a large staircase, and the sealing room itself. It was a small oval-shaped room with just a few chairs and of course mirrors in gold-painted frames hanging opposite one another.

My parents were in the room as was our branch president and his wife and probably another witness and the sealer of course, though I don't remember that.

What I do remember is kneeling around the altar with my parents. I have no idea if they had already been sealed or if we witnessed that (I assume we did not witness it), but I do remember the six of us around the altar together. And I remember the free flowing tears following the sealing itself. We looked at one another in the "eternal" mirrors, we hugged and cried.

I can't pretend that I understood everything then that I do now about the sealing (nor can I pretend I understand everything about the sealing now!), but I do know how I felt: The temple was a place of peace, of happiness, and a place where I wanted to return. Even at that young age, I attributed the peace that I felt to the influence of the spirit, and that experience kneeling around the altar with my parents has been and continues to be a key landmark in my path to testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and His restored church.

I am grateful that my own children have been born in the covenant, owing to my wife's and my having been sealed at the time of our marriage, but I sometimes wish they could have had the powerful spiritual experience I did as a young boy.

I love to see the temple

My new Ensign arrived yesterday. That is, my substitute for the Ensign. The church has updated and republished its Temples booklet and sent it to all Ensign and Liahona subscribers. I like the new edition.

The reasons given for the reprint? The old version was out of stock in various languages, the old version excluded many of the new temples, and (of course) the old version didn't include a message from our present prophet, President Monson.

I enjoyed leafing through last night to see the temple photos. Personally, I would have enjoyed more large-format photos of temples rather than of people illustrating various articles, but I was pleased to see so many temples represented throughout the magazine.

I also enjoyed seeing detail shots from some of the temples featured. The interior murals from the Manhattan New York Temple were a surprise to me. Very cool.

I live in Southeast Michigan where we have the Detroit Michigan Temple, dedicated in October 1999. Having a temple so close (we're about 45 minutes away) is an incredible blessing. I grew up in Pittsburgh, and our family drove to the nearest temple to be sealed in 1968 – Salt Lake City. When the Washington, DC temple was dedicated in the 1970's we counted ourselves about as lucky as we could be.

I've spent time at BYU in the shadow of the Provo Utah Temple, and during my years there I had periods of taking good advantage of that resource and years in which I was distracted by other things. After grad school in Pittsburgh, we moved to Michigan and the Chicago Illinois Temple was the closest – about as long a drive as Washington was from Pittsburgh, unless there was a traffic issue in Chicago (and when wasn't there?). The Toronto Ontario Temple shortened our commute, and was personally delightful for me because my wife and I were able to sing in the choir for one of the dedicatory sessions.

When "our" temple was announced in Michigan we could hardly believe it. We did not grow up here and do not have the same sense of history that some do in this area (though we've now called Michigan home for over 20 years), but we know that the foundations for the Detroit Michigan Temple were laid by many saints working over many years to build the church here.

The Detroit Temple sits on Woodward Avenue. At the groundbreaking, the Bloomfield Hills stake president suggested it was likely Joseph Smith had passed the site of the temple, as Woodward Avenue is likely the road that Stephen Mack (Joseph's uncle) had paid to build between his farm in Pontiac and the city of Detroit.

At the dedication of the Detroit Temple, I sat in the stake center next door with our children who attended while my wife played the organ for the choir in the celestial room. (I gave up my seat -- available to me as spouse of the organist -- in the celestial room to be with our kids.) My wife remembers hearing President Hinckley talk about his lovely wife while she sat on the front row. Since my wife was at the organ, she had a clear view of Sister Hinckley during the president's tender remarks. It was quite a moving experience.

The new Temples magazine includes an edited version of President Hunter's article on our being a temple-going people. It's one of my favorites as President Hunter taught repeatedly that we are a temple-motivated, temple-loving, temple-attending people. He encouraged us to hold a recommend even when we were not close enough to attend a temple regularly.

I'll write about some of my temple experiences over the next few posts. I've laid some of the groundwork here, but for me temple worship is uniquely private, personal and sacred. Like so many spiritual things, common physical experiences do not always yield the same spiritual result. But for me, the temple has been a place of peace, of comfort, of testimony, of learning, of growth.

The new Temple magazine will be available for viewing at lds.org, though it wasn't yet there when I checked this morning.