====== Plumbing the Temple ======

I have been accused, at various times, of being a smart and capable person. This past week has been an exercise in just how much I am not so.

===== Jay Is a Terrible Plumber =====


Just a few days before Christmas, Lisa noticed a wet spot in one corner of our front yard. If you recall our weather for the last few, well, years, you would think, as we did, how out of place this wet spot was. I finally came to the conclusion that we had a water supply leak. I studied out the whole matter of repairing such things on the internet and felt I had a handle on what I would do with whatever circumstance I found.   

The day after Christmas, with thoughts of avoiding the unnecessary cost of having the work done for me, I set to work with a shovel and revealed a tiny crack in a very corroded pipe about three feet under what passes for our lawn. All the pundits had said to simply cut out the bad section of pipe and replace it with something called a compression fitting, which I diligently did. Sadly, the corrosion seemed so bad that there was nothing smooth for the fitting to seal against and I had leaks worse than the original. I spent the better part of a day changing into cleaner clothes, driving to the hardware store, buying this thing and that, going home, changing back into the muddy clothes, and working yet again at what I could. I think I went through the whole procedure four or five times, getting more and more frustrated, half-praying and half-shaking-my-fist-at-the-heavens until it finally got too dark to do anything else.


I think I finally listened to Lisa who suggested that I just call a plumber. I grates me a little to have to spend extra money having the job done for me, but I didn't seem capable of solving the problem myself. I had gotten so lathered up about how I was going to do this that I was getting too surly to live with, but after one phone call to someone who did this sort of work all the time, it was just going to be competently handled and it was out of my hands! What a relief!

The next day, two guys came by, spent about thirty minutes with two compression fittings, a length of pvc pipe, a roll of teflon tape (which my Internet research had told me never to use in these situations) and had a leak-free fix to my existing water line! It didn't cost me thousands of dollars and they even helped me fill back in the hole I had dug.

I hope you see from all of this that, given plumbing, I don't feel very smart and I am not particularly capable. I thank the Lord for people who are competent on the subject and are willing to help.

===== Frustration in the Spirit World =====

I sometimes wonder about those in the spirit world. I am told that to be a spirit can be a real blessing to those who had troublesome bodies or who suffered greatly from the pains of old age or handicap. I remember readily being in that muddy hole, cursing my inability to seal up a leaking water line and I can only imagine the frustration of someone who was accustomed to doing nearly everything themselves and now lacks a body with which to do anything! Imagine those hardy ancestors of ours, who turned forests into farms with only hand tools and draft animals - how many years have they been waiting in the spirit world for the wonderful day of resurrection and been watching us make a mess of the places they labored so hard to create? I can picture my progenitors stomping about and shouting at the top of their lungs at me but I can't hear or see them! It makes a day laboring in a muddy hole seem like some vacation!

There is one great frustration that we know of from the spirit world: the desire to have and enjoy the saving ordinances of the gospel. No spirit, no matter how competent they once were, can be baptized, ordained, endowed, or sealed to their wives and children after their life is over; at least it can't be done through their power alone, no matter how hard they try. The spirits of our ancestors need help, specifically our help, for we have the tools and materials and perhaps even the know-how that they lack. We have these beautiful temples, which are not too far away, we have vehicles to get ourselves and our friends there and back, we have that precious commodity of time to set aside for temple service.

It is as if they can just figuratively contact us (through family history work) and we mortal children will take care of the rest! We are like that wonderful plumber come to rescue poor, frustrated Jay!

==== Elder Bednar Quote ====

//In a recent general conference talk, Elder David A. Bednar shared the following recollection://

Shortly after I was called to serve as a stake president in 1987, I talked with a good friend who recently had been released as a stake president. During our conversation I asked him what he would teach me about becoming an effective stake president. His answer to my question had a profound impact upon my subsequent service and ministry.

My friend indicated he had been called to serve as a temple worker soon after his release. He then said: “I wish I had been a temple worker before I was a stake president. If I had served in the temple before my call to serve as a stake president, I would have been a very different stake president.”

I was intrigued by his answer and asked him to explain further. He responded: “I believe I was a good stake president. The programs in our stake ran well, and our statistics were above average. But serving in the temple has expanded my vision. If I were called today to serve as a stake president, my primary focus would be on worthiness to receive and honor temple covenants. I would strive to make temple preparation the center of all that we did. I would do a better job of shepherding the Saints to the house of the Lord.”

That brief conversation with my friend helped me as a stake president to teach relentlessly about and testify of the eternal importance of temple ordinances, temple covenants, and temple worship. The deepest desire of our presidency was for every member of the stake to receive the blessings of the temple, to be worthy of and to use frequently a temple recommend.

==== President Hunter Quote ====

//President Howard W. Hunter summed up his desires for us in relation to the temple in his one conference talk as President of the Church://

...the dead are anxiously waiting for the Latter-day Saints to search out their names and then go into the temples to officiate in their behalf, that they may be liberated from their prison house in the spirit world. All of us should find joy in this magnificent labor of love.

What a glorious thing it is for us to have the privilege of going to the temple for our own blessings. Then after going to the temple for our own blessings, what a glorious privilege to do the work for those who have gone on before us. This aspect of temple work is an unselfish work. Yet whenever we do temple work for other people, there is a blessing that comes back to us. Thus it should be no surprise to us that the Lord does desire that his people be a temple-motivated people. I repeat what I have said before: It would please the Lord for every adult member to be worthy of—and to carry—a current temple recommend, even if proximity to a temple does not allow immediate or frequent use of it. The things that we must do and not do to be worthy of a temple recommend are the very things that ensure we will be happy as individuals and as families.

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.

Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. And let us teach them more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say about the purposes of the house of the Lord. Keep a picture of a temple in your home that your children may see it. Teach them about the purposes of the house of the Lord. Have them plan from their earliest years to go there and to remain worthy of that blessing. Let us prepare every missionary to go to the temple worthily and to make that experience an even greater highlight than receiving the mission call. Let us plan for and teach and plead with our children to marry in the house of the Lord. Let us reaffirm more vigorously than we ever have in the past that it does matter where you marry and by what authority you are pronounced man and wife.

===== Do Whatever it Takes =====

Brothers and sisters, I hope we have our temple recommends with us. I hope we keep them current and we are using them regularly. I may not be able to get a length of pipe from one side of town to the other, but I do have a van that often has empty seats on the regular temple trips. Many of us use considerable time and money to visit distant children and grandchildren (which is wonderful), but perhaps we could also put a bit of that time and money aside to do something special for our parents and grandparents that have passed on, do those ordinances that they cannot do for themselves.

If a thing or two stand in your way in receiving a temple recommend, get some help. Our branch president and other priesthood leaders stand ready to help you become worthy and I don't remember anyone sending out a bill. If a thing or two stand in your way in making that not-too-long trip to a temple, there is a van going about once a month that nearly always has an empty seat or two available. As you travel about the country on family visits, pull away for a few hours and spend some time at the temple with those ancestors who are waiting for what you can do for them. Your example of temple service may encourage and strengthen the desire of your children and grandchildren to receive temple blessings as well! What greater gift can you inspire your family members to receive! 

May the Lord help us find ways and means to qualify and re-qualify ourselves for temple service and to go to the temple more often. May He lead us in helping out frustrated souls stuck down muddy holes. Let us each help one another to be more competent and capable to serve those who have passed on in the temples of our Lord. May we follow the Savior in his great work of saving our brother and sisters and qualifying them and ourselves for celestial Glory with our Father in Heaven, is my prayer...