Temple Blessings for Ourselves & Our Ancestors

This is a RS lessons from last week that I was asked to teach.

People must have found out I was teaching because there were only about 8 people there.

But, still...it was a fun one.  At least for me.

I used some of these pictures for the lesson.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the lesson:

Each [temple] has been built to one great eternal purpose: to serve as aHouse of the Lord, to provide a place sacred and suitable for the performing of holy ordinances that bind on earth as in heaven—ordinances for the dead and for the living that assure those who receive them and who are faithful to their covenants, the possession and association of their families, worlds without end, and exaltation with them in the celestial kingdom of our Father.

All of the … temples which have been built or yet will be dedicated, will prove to be a blessing beyond measure to all those who worthily avail themselves of the privilege of using it, both for themselves and for their kindred dead.

The Lord is helping us; it is marvelous how the way is opened and how other people frequently are prompted to prepare their genealogies. But sometimes we fail to take advantage of our opportunities to prepare our genealogies, notwithstanding the Lord has very pointedly said that unlesswe take care of our temple work we will be rejected with our dead [seeD&C 124:32]. This is a very serious thing. This is something that we cannot change, if we have wasted our opportunities until life passes. …We cannot expect others to do this work for us.

So, the Lord, in one way or another, encourages, advises, and counsels us to do our work. Some families who can’t do the work themselves have someone else working all the time on their temple genealogy, and records.

If we do our part, our genealogies will be unfolded to us—sometimes in one way, sometimes in another. So I want to suggest to you, my brethren and sisters: let us do our part.

kelli, summer, and sierra in Kirkland, OH in 2001

We talked about the Spirit of Elijah and quoting one of the Young Women in our ward who said, 

"I have the caught the Spirit of Elijah and it is terminal."

Earlier in the week I had gone Visit Teaching with my most favorite VT partner ever.

(she's twice my age, looks like my Grandma and swears like my mom)

She shared a quote from Conference with the sisters that we visit (even though we don't usually share a message, she felt prompted to share a message this month).

It was from April 2012 Conference, Richard G. Scott...

Another example of revelation is this guidance given to President Joseph F. Smith: “I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separate from them. … We are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors … who have preceded us into the spirit world. We can not forget them; we do not cease to love them; we always hold them in our hearts, in memory, and thus we are associated and united to them by ties that we can not break. … If this is the case with us in our finite condition, surrounded by our mortal weaknesses, … how much more certain it is … to believe that those who have been faithful, who have gone beyond … can see us better than we can see them; that they know us better than we know them. … We live in their presence, they see us, they are solicitous for our welfare, they love us now more than ever. For now they see the dangers that beset us; … their love for us and their desire for our well being must be greater than that which we feel for ourselves.”

Plus, a member of the Stake Presidency spoke in Sacrament Meeting that day and mentioned that "we are entitled to the help of the angels that have gone before us."

It was so awesome how all things pointed to the message that I was studying last week. 

I just wanted to remember these quotes so here they are.