On my 22nd Birthday I went through the Mount Timpanogos Temple to receive my Endowments in preparation for serving a Full-time mission for the Church. That morning before we left the house my mother gave me one of the best birthday presents I have ever received. She gave me a journal. However this wasn’t just any journal my mother explained. This was to be my temple journal.
For the next few weeks before leaving on my mission, I tried to go to the temple as often as I could. And every time I went to the temple, I would record in my journal, which temple I went to, what ordinance I did, who I went with, and whom I did work for. Along with these records I wrote any impressions, and feelings I had that went along with each visit.
I loved going to the temple. Each time I went I felt surrounded in Love, filled with the Spirit, and strengthened in my desire to live righteously. Later while on my mission, I missed being able to go to the temple, due to there being no temples within the boundaries of my mission. However, though I could not attend the temple, I brought a bit of the temple with me in the form of my temple journal.
I cannot tell you how often I would open that sacred journal and reread those entries I had made. I can tell you that each time I did so I felt an echo of that Love, Spirit, and Strength I had felt while in the House of the Lord. Each time I read the names of my dear ancestors, whom I had served by doing their work, it was as if they were right there with me, helping me to accomplish the work I was called to do.
I felt the spirit of Elijah working in me, and I know that it is in fulfillment of the prophesy found in the book of Malachi, in the Old Testament which says,
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:5-6
Now I have been home from my mission for almost two years. I still carry that temple journal with me, and make entries in it often. Each time I do, I am reminded of the fact that as the Prophet Brigham Young put it,
“Our fathers cannot be made perfect without us; we cannot be made perfect without them. They have done their work and now sleep. We are now called upon to do ours; which is to be the greatest work man ever performed on the earth. Millions of our fellow creatures who have lived upon the earth and died without a knowledge of the Gospel must be officiated for in order that they may inherit eternal life (that is, all that would have received the Gospel). And we are called upon to enter into this work.” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, Temple Service
