Let Your Diligence Be Redoubled

In the most recent general conference, Elder Rasband spoke about the importance of receiving a temple recommend. He remarked, “I remember hearing President Howard W. Hunter in his first general conference address as the 14th President of the Church. He said: ‘It is the deepest desire of my heart to have every member of the Church worthy to enter the temple. It would please the Lord if every adult member would be worthy of—and carry—a current temple recommend.’” That talk was given in 1994 in President Hunter’s only general conference as the prophet. In it he also said, “We will, as you would expect us to do, continue to hold to the high standards of conduct which define a Latter-day Saint. It is the Lord who established those standards, and we are not free to set them aside…. The things that we must do and not do to be worthy of a temple recommend are the very things that ensure we will be happy as individuals and as families.” He encouraged us to focus on the temple in our families: “Let us be a temple-attending people. Attend the temple as frequently as personal circumstances allow. Keep a picture of a temple in your home that your children may see it. Teach them about the purposes of the house of the Lord. Have them plan from their earliest years to go there and to remain worthy of that blessing.” This invitation to always remain worthy to attend the house of the Lord and to focus our attention on the ordinances of the temple has become a main part of his legacy as prophet. And his counsel is very applicable to us today—though we can’t regularly go to the temple, we can focus on remaining worthy of the blessings of the Lord’s holy house.

                Elder Rasband reiterated President Hunter’s invitation in these words: “If you have yet to receive a recommend or if your recommend has lapsed, line up at the door of the bishop just as the early Saints lined up at the door of the Nauvoo Temple in 1846.” He was referring to those early Saints who labored in the temple until the last possible moment in the beginning of that year as they were being driven out of their city. The second Saints volume describes it this way: “Though the temple as a whole remained undedicated, they had already dedicated its attic and administered the endowment there to more than five thousand eager Saints. They had also sealed approximately thirteen hundred couples for time and eternity…. Brigham had planned to stop administering ordinances on February 3, the day before the first wagons left the city, but Saints had thronged the temple all day, anxious to receive the ordinances before their departure. At first, Brigham had dismissed them. ‘We shall build more temples and have further opportunities to receive the blessings of the Lord,’ he had insisted. ‘In this temple we have been abundantly rewarded, if we receive no more.’ Expecting the crowd to disperse, Brigham had started to walk home. But he had not gone far before he returned and found the temple overflowing with people hungering and thirsting for the word of the Lord. That day, 295 more Saints had received their temple blessings.” I love that story. Those Saints’ earnest desire to receive the blessings of the Lord is a powerful example to us of the eagerness with which we should also seek the blessings of the Lord’s house. Striving to live worthily and hold a current temple recommend is certainly a major part of seeking what the temple has to offer us.

            In his talk Elder Rasband also quoted this scripture given by the Prophet Joseph in a letter in 1842 while the Nauvoo Temple was being built: “And again, verily thus saith the Lord: Let the work of my temple, and all the works which I have appointed unto you, be continued on and not cease; and let your diligence, and your perseverance, and patience, and your works be redoubled, and you shall in nowise lose your reward, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Doctrine and Covenants 127:4). He then remarked, “When the Lord calls for us to ‘redouble’ our efforts, He is asking that we increase in righteousness. For example, we may expand our study of the scriptures, our family history research, and our prayers of faith that we may share our love for the Lord’s house with those preparing to receive a temple recommend, our family members in particular.” Though we may not at this time be able to increase our efforts to perform ordinances in the temple, we can strive to increase in worthiness and to perform more earnestly the work of family history in our homes. If we do that with the same zeal of those early Saints receiving their temple blessings,  redoubling our righteous efforts, we will surely have His strength in our own challenges just as they did in their arduous journey across the plains.