The Temple

O Templo Sagrado, Um Farol para o Mundo

The Holy Temple, a Lighthouse to the World

Our mission here in Atlanta is centered so much around the temple.  Within the temple we receive the higher ordinances of the Gospel including the endowment and the sealing of families (husband to wife and children to parents) together for all time and eternity.  The ordinances of baptism and confirmation, as well as the endowment and sealing of families, are also performed by proxy for our deceased ancestors who did not receive the ordinances while alive on this earth.

One of our responsibilities is to serve as Family History Consultants and help members do their family history and find their ancestors.

Julie Brewer, who is the organist in our little Portuguese speaking branch, has recently started to do her family history again and is now serving on the Family History Center staff.

The full-time missionaries are also encouraged to work on their own family history and get names of their ancestors so that they, the missionaries, can perform the ordinances as proxies for their deceased family members.  We believe that the Gospel is being preached to those spirits who have passed on and those spirits can accept or reject the Gospel.  See 1 Peter 3:18-20.  Also see 1 Peter 4:6 which reads as follows:  "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

Here are five missionaries working on their family history.

Once they find an ancestor, they print out a name card and take it with them the next time they go to the temple.

Sister Gray and Sister Parrack each have a family name.  (Sorry about the reverse image picture.)

Temple baptisms are a great way for the youth of the Church to attend the temple.  As mentioned in a previous blog, the Apostle Paul alludes to vicarious baptisms in 1 Cor 15:29 "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?  why are they then baptized for the dead?"

The youth of the Clear Springs branch attended the temple on Thursday night and performed baptisms for their ancestors.

Every three months the full-time missionaries get to attend the temple and perform the endowment ordinance for one of their ancestors.  This week we were able to attend with a number of missionaries.

These are missionaries from the Roswell Zone.  Upon completion of the endowment ordinance, each temple patron enters the celestial room which represents the celestial kingdom or the highest degree of heaven.  The Apostle Paul mentions the kingdoms of heaven in 1 Cor 15:40-42 "There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.  So also is the resurrection of the dead.  ..."

As I sat in the Celestial room and looked out upon all the young missionaries sitting reverently, reading the scriptures, praying, and meditating, I could feel the tremendous power that had fallen upon them.  It was literally a fulfillment of the revelation received by Joseph Smith as recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants which reads as follows "Yea, verily I say unto you, I gave you a commandment that you should build a house (temple), in the which house I design to endow those whom I have chosen with power from on high."  D&C 95:8.  I can testify that I am a witness to the fulfillment of this prophecy that these missionaries are endowed with power from on high and that this prophecy continues to be repeated every day in every temple throughout the world.

So ends another week of miracles for two over-the-hill senior missionaries.