“As Latter-day Saints, we know we do not earn heaven; we co-create heaven, and we do so by participating in the celestial relationships that are its essence (and which temple ordinances eternalize).”
Temples
LDS Quotes on Temples
“In the temple, through the power of the Holy Spirit, knowledge is transformed into virtues. A person who attends the temple regularly grows more patient, more long-suffering, and charitable. He becomes more diligent, more committed, and more dedicated. He develops a greater capacity to love his wife and children and to respect the good qualities and the rights of others. He develops a greater sense of values, becoming more honorable and upright in his dealings and less critical of others. In the temple knowledge is transformed into feelings of the heart, resulting in actions that build character. Thus, the family is strengthened and the community is uplifted to the extent of his influence”
| Temple in the Last Days, p. 53
Each holy temple stands as a symbol of our membership in the Church, as a sign of our faith in life after death, and as a sacred step toward eternal glory for us and our families.
| Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings
I know your lives are busy. I know that you have much to do. But I make you a promise that if you will go to the house of the Lord, you will be blessed; life will be better for you.
The work of remembering one who is dead is a work of the utmost unselfish love. If one wants to make sure that love is completely unselfish, he eliminates every possibility of repayment.
“Any joy we savor in the absence of our loved ones is a partial joy, a fractured joy. Heaven apart from those we love is just hell by another name. Joseph said as much: ‘Let me be resurrected with the Saints,’ he said to his people in Nuavoo, ‘whether I ascend to heaven to descend to hell, or go to any other place.'”
“Zion-building is not preparation for heaven. It is heaven, in embryo. The process of sanctifying disciples of Christ, constituting them into a community of love and harmony, does not qualify individuals for heaven; sanctification and celestial relationality are the essence of heaven. Zion, in this conception, is both an ideal and a transitional stage into the salvation toward which all Christians strive.”
“Enter this door as if the floors were paved with Gold; And every wall of jewels all of wealth untold; As if a choir in robes of fire were singing here; No shout nor rush, but hush, for God is here.”
“One of the major missions of the Church is to uniquely identify these individuals who have died and perform the necessary saving ordinances in their behalf, for they cannot do it for themselves. Once these ordinances are performed, if the individual accepts the gospel in the great world of spirits, then this work will be effective.”
| “Moral Values and Rewards,” Ensign, May 1981, 68.
“The wisdom and mercy of God in preparing an ordinance for the salvation of the dead. . . . Those Saints who neglect it in behalf of their deceased relatives, do it at the peril of their own salvation.”
| History of the Church, 4:426.