Finding Answers: From Sister to Sister
What Blessings Can I Receive from the Temple Endowment as a Woman?
Making covenants in the temple offers sisters in the gospel the gift of knowledge and access to God’s power and so many other blessings.
My stake president appeared in the doorway of the office where I was working as a Brigham Young University student. I was near graduation and contemplating next steps—work, more school, where to live, etc. He asked if he could take a few minutes.
“Of course!” I said.
“Have you ever thought about receiving your temple endowment?” he asked.
I was surprised. And intrigued. “I can do that?”
It was 1987. And at the time, the endowment was most often received by sisters who were planning to serve a mission or engaged to be married—and neither was true for me.
As my stake president encouraged me, I felt a deep desire and an urgency to move forward. I knew little about the endowment, but I had been raised by parents who loved serving in the temple. I wanted to experience the peace and understanding they associated with their temple covenants.
The policy of the Church has changed in the past 35 years, and now “all accountable adult members of the Church are invited to prepare for and receive their own endowment.”1 And prophets and apostles are clearly urging sisters to embrace temple covenants, “to know more, to understand more, to feel more about temples than you ever have before.”2
Receiving the endowment in Heavenly Father’s temple is literally a gift—an endowment of knowledge and power. President Russell M. Nelson has taught, “Those who are endowed in the house of the Lord receive a gift of God’s priesthood power by virtue of their covenant, along with a gift of knowledge to know how to draw upon that power.”3 As we work through the challenges and opportunities of mortality, Jesus Christ wants to share His sustaining, strengthening, enlightening, and discerning power with us—through the temple endowment.
What is the gift of knowledge we receive?
In the temple endowment, we receive instruction and eternal context for our mortal experience. We become acquainted with our first earthly parents, Adam and Eve. We are taught the Savior’s central, loving role in our Father’s plan of salvation. We are also taught that only by exercising our agency to learn and to repent, making and honoring covenants, and trusting our Savior can we have a fulness of joy, eventually become like our Savior, and return to the presence of our Heavenly Father.
We can also be personally, intimately tutored. “The temple is a holy place where revelation comes to us easily if our hearts are open to it and we are worthy of it.”4 For me, this has most often come in the form of peace, simple confirmation, or small doctrinal insights. But on occasion, through the endowment, I have received dearly sought, life-changing answers to personal questions.
Can the temple really change my life?
I am grateful we have prophets today who have taught of the great blessings that are available to both women and men as they participate in the ordinances of the temple. President Nelson has taught: “The heavens are just as open to women who are endowed with God’s power flowing from their priesthood covenants as they are to men who bear the priesthood. I pray that truth will register upon each of your hearts because I believe it will change your life.”5
During my young adult years, I grappled with a challenge that seemed beyond my ability to solve. I desperately sought answers. I searched the scriptures, studied the words of the prophets, attended the temple, and sought professional advice. Then, during one visit to the temple, the words of Eve made me sit upright. In one moment, the Spirit filled me as I was educated from on high. I was given knowledge that responded directly to my challenge, a soul-expanding view that I had never considered. This new clarity gave me courage to take an incredibly difficult first step into the unknown. That first step, revealed to me in the temple, has been the foundation for innumerable blessings I have cherished since. Indeed, being endowed with God’s power has changed my life—giving me an eternal framework, spiritual understanding, divine mentoring, and courage and power to act—these are blessings I dearly cherish!
What exactly does God’s power look like in my life?
“God’s power” can seem too grand to be within our reach. But we might be surprised at how often we are already acting with God’s power without recognizing it. Preach My Gospel states, “Power may be manifest in many things you do,” and lists simple things that we may consider unremarkable, such as knowing the right thing to say, having our testimony confirmed by the Spirit, praying for others, and expressing love.6 The General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enumerates certain gifts received through the endowment, including “power to do all that Heavenly Father wants His children to do.”7
We can add many small yet powerful acts to this list. What about discerning the needs of a sister to whom you minister? Or finding courage to speak—in normal and natural ways—more about Jesus Christ? As we pay attention, we will increasingly recognize His power. How have you already accessed His power in your life?
In fact, when we make covenants and honor covenantal responsibilities (and I love this!), He will actually give us the power to keep those covenants. President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, taught that “our honest effort to keep our covenants allows God to increase our power to do it.”8
Why does God want to share His power with us?
In the scriptures, the phrase “endowed with power” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:32, 38; 43:16; see also Luke 24:49) is often used in the context of preparing disciples to share the gospel as missionaries. That same work continues today as we are endowed with God’s power in the temple and then sent forth to gather Israel—as missionaries and also as parents, sisters and aunts, teachers, neighbors, coworkers, and friends.
We go forth from the temple “armed with … power,” with His name upon us, His glory round about us, and His angels having charge over us, and with a knowledge that this is His work (Doctrine and Covenants 109:22; see also verse 23). These glorious blessings are God’s power to take His gospel to the ends of the earth—or to the end of the street, a Primary classroom, our place of work, or our own family room.
The language is grand. We may not be accustomed to seeing ourselves in this light. But this is exactly what prophets and apostles are urging us to do. President Nelson said: “So today I plead with my sisters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to step forward! Take your rightful and needful place in your home, in your community, and in the kingdom of God—more than you ever have before. … And I promise you in the name of Jesus Christ that as you do so, the Holy Ghost will magnify your influence in an unprecedented way!”9
Sisters, we are essential in the kingdom of God. Whether at work, in our communities and neighborhoods, or in homes and families, our influence is felt and heard—and critically needed! As we follow our prophet to “step forward” in all our varied responsibilities and unique walks of life, receiving and honoring temple covenants will “fill our lives with power and strength available in no other way.”10