My Testimony of the Temple

We went to the temple again with two of Courtney's friends -- Bailey and Celeste. Such fun friends! It was nice for her to go through again more relaxed about what to expect. And fun to be with friends too.

The temple is a lot like baptism. I told Courtney on her baptism day, everyone was asking her, "How do you feel?!" And she was like... "Fine." (On the other hand, Marty was smiling all day on his baptism day saying, "GREAT!")

These experiences are such important milestones and we build them up, but for the newly endowed, they may be thinking after all the excitement, "I don't feel any different." Things of spiritual nature often take time. Time to process. And then when your brain starts to quiet because it knows what to expect and you've taken it all in over and over again, your spirit can start to feel. In addition, as you get older and have more life experiences and become even more accustomed to recognizing the spirit, you start recognizing it in the temple as well.

I've said this many times, but this is my testimony of the temple: Even after years of attendance, my brain doesn't quite comprehend the magnitude of the importance of the temple. But my spirit does. The spirit testifies to me each time I'm there that the work I'm doing at that moment in the temple has positive eternal consequences and will positively bless my family before me and after me. I know its true. I don't know what those eternal blessings are but I know they are greater than my earthly state can imagine. That doing work in the temple has powerful eternal consequences. And when we die and have more understanding, we will be completely awestruck that Heavenly Father entrusted us--who have such limited knowledge--to act merely on faith and obedience and that we will be so, so, so eternally grateful that we did.