“Every time a temple is dedicated to the Lord , the darkness pushes further back, prison doors are opened and light comes into the world.”
| Church News, Jan. 27, 2001
Temples
LDS Quotes on Temples
“The deepest desire of our presidency is to help each woman in the Church prepare to receive the blessings of the temple, to honor the covenants she makes, and to be engaged in the cause of Zion. The Relief Society inspires and teaches women to help them increase their faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families, and seek out and help those in need.”
| Every Woman Needs Relief Society
“In our day, the steadying arm of the Lord reaches us through the ordinances of His holy temples. Said the Prophet Joseph to the early Saints in Nauvoo, ‘You need an endowment, brethren, in order that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things.’ How right he was! Being blessed with the temple covenants and endowed with power made it possible for the Latter-day Saints to endure tribulation with faith. At the end of her own pioneer journey, Sarah Rich recorded, ‘If it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that temple… our journey would have been like… taking a leap in the dark.'”
| "Faith through Tribulation Brings Peace and Joy," Ensign (CR), May 2003, p.15
Reflecting on Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt recorded: “He taught me many great and glorious principles concerning God . . . and the heavenly order of eternity. It was at this time that I received from him the first idea of eternal family organizations. . . . It was from him that I learned that the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all eternity. . . . I had loved before, but I knew not why. But now I loved—with a pureness—an intensity of elevated, exalted feelings, which would lift my soul form the transitory things of this grovelling sphere and expand it as the ocean.”
| Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt
Without the sealings that create eternal families and link generations here and hereafter, we would be left in eternity with neither roots nor branches—that is, neither ancestry nor posterity.
[After giving the first endowments, Joseph Smith said to Brigham Young:] “Brother Brigham, this is not arranged perfectly; however we have done the best we could under the circumstances in which we are placed. I wish you to take this matter in hand: organize and systematize all these ceremonies.
| L. John Nuttall diary, February 7, 1877, quotes in BYU Studies 19
“[When we do temple work] for those who have gone beyond the veil…we expect no thanks, nor do we have the assurance that they will accept that which we offer. However, we serve, and in that process we attain that which comes of no other effort: we literally become Saviors on mount Zion. As our Savior gave His life as a vicarious sacrifice for us, so we, in some small measure do the same when we perform proxy work in the temple for those who have no means of moving forward unless something is done for them by those of us here on the earth”
“My brothers and sisters, temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service.
| The Holy Temple—a Beacon to the World
The bishop should encourage every man, woman and child who earns and receives a return for labor, to honor the Lord and to prove obedient to the law of God by giving the one-tenth of that which he or she receives, as the Lord requires, so that they may have their names enrolled on the book of the law of the Lord, that their genealogies may be had in the archives of the Church, and that they may be entitled to the privileges and blessings of the house of God.
“The purpose . . . is that of promoting among the members of the Church a vital, active interest in the compilation of genealogical records, in the collating of items of lineage and in the formulation of true family pedigrees, so that the relationship between ancestry and posterity may be determined and be made readily accessible. . . . It is a notable fact that the last seven or eight decades have witnessed a development of interest in genealogical matters theretofore unknown in modern times. . . . There is . . . an influence operative in the world, a spirit moving upon the people, in response to which the living are yearningly reaching backward to learn of their dead.”
| “Genealogical Work Is Essential to Redemption of the Dead in the Holy Temples of the Lord”