Blessings of Making and Keeping Temple Covenants

By Sister Stella Ajilong

Area Organisation Adviser

In September 2022, I had a wonderful opportunity of visiting the Accra Ghana Temple with my two sons, their spouses and three grandchildren. One of my sons was getting sealed to his wife and three children. All dressed in white, I pictured in my mind’s eye an eternal family if we all kept our covenants.

We are all children of our Father in Heaven, and He loves us so much. However, a more binding relationship with Him is through covenant making and covenant keeping. Obedience to covenants made in our chapels and houses of worship helps usher us to the higher covenants of the temples. As members of the Church, therefore, our goal ought to be going to the temple to covenant with Heavenly Father and to keep the covenants so we can enjoy that binding relationship.

Malachi, in the Old Testament, prophesied of the coming of Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers. The same prophecy was quoted by the angel Moroni when he appeared to Prophet Joseph Smith. (See Doctrine and Covenants 2.) This prophecy was fulfilled when Elijah came to the Kirtland Temple to restore the sealing keys. (See Doctrine and Covenants 110:14–15.) Through these keys, our hearts not only turn to our ancestors but also to the promises God made to Abraham. Church members directly become beneficiaries of those promises as either Abraham’s literal children by blood or adoption. (See Abraham 5:10–11.)

Nephi taught us well that the Lord invites us all to come unto Him to partake of His goodness and denies none, black and white, bond and free, male and female, both Jew and Gentile. (See 2 Nephi 26:33.) To those who haven’t yet visited the temple, may we prepare well by obediently keeping the covenants we have so far made that we may be worthy to enter the house of the Lord.

For the adult men, be worthy to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood, without which you can’t enter the house of the Lord. Obtain a temple recommend by going through interviews with your bishop and stake president. Enroll and attend the temple preparation classes and prepare travel documents like a passport, yellow fever certificate and COVID-19 vaccination certificate if necessary.

I testify that the temple is the house of the Lord wherein we can commune with Him to seek divine guidance for our lives, feel of His love, joy and peace. It is a place of learning where our understanding of the plan of salvation is increased. It is where we serve as saviors on Mount Zion by being proxies for our deceased ancestors and others that we don’t even know. It is a place to repeatedly recommit to keep the covenants.

In the October 2022 general conference, President Russell M. Nelson promised us that making covenants in baptismal fonts and in the temple and keeping them increases our access to the power of Jesus Christ.¹

May we continue to keep temple covenants and return to worship in the temple as often as opportunity is available.