Sealed In Heaven

To my daughter, 

                On Friday night we went to see your great-grandmother, and soon thereafter she passed away at the age of 98 years old. I hope that you will have a memory of seeing her even though you are very young. She was born in 1923 in Iowa and grew up there. After she graduated from high school she was in the Marine Corps during WWII. She served for about two years and spent much of that time in Washington D.C. as a secretary to a marine colonel. After she was released, she moved to Des Moines, Iowa, and when she was there she started looking for a church to attend. She found our church in the phone book there and attended for several months and met with the missionaries. She was baptized on April 15, 1950. I want to share with you part of her testimony of the gospel that she wrote down for her posterity. She wrote this: “The gospel has always been a blessing to me. It seems I have known these truths all of my life. I have a certain knowledge that Jesus is our divine Savior. He died on the cross so that we can be forgiven of our sins and return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. As disciples of Christ, we should give of ourselves, our time, talents, and resources to care for those in need. My posterity has been strengthened through the years because I made the choice to be baptized. I hope you and all of my descendants will stay close to the Church and let it guide your lives.” After her baptism she moved to Utah where she met her husband (my grandpa) and was married. Your grandmother was their first child. How blessed we are that she had the courage to accept the gospel and teach it to her children who then have passed on their faith in Jesus Christ. I pray that you will develop that same faith in the Savior!

                I am so grateful for the blessings of the gospel and in particular the temple that allow us to be bound together as a family. Because of the covenants that we make in the house of the Lord and the priesthood power that can seal us together there, we have this promise: “Whatsoever you seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever you bind on earth, in my name and by my word, saith the Lord, it shall be eternally bound in the heavens” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:46). Because of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice and resurrection, the temple can connect us to past generations like your great-grandmother and bind us together as a family and to future generations. I know that one day you and I will both see your great-grandmother again. Just as the mirrors facing each other showed us this week an image that seemed to never end, so too can our family be bound together forever. It’s no wonder that Joseph Smith declared this as he taught this doctrine: “Now, what do we hear in the gospel which we have received? A voice of gladness! A voice of mercy from heaven; and a voice of truth out of the earth; glad tidings for the dead; a voice of gladness for the living and the dead; glad tidings of great joy” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:19). I pray that we can always live true to each other and to the Savior Jesus Christ so these blessings of the temple will indeed keep us bound together throughout eternity! 

Love,

Dad