mormon temples

So my birthday has now come and gone and my 23 before 23 goals are supposed to be complete. I only finished 17, but I still feel good about that. I have a whole other post planned to talk more about the actual list, but I still have three tasks to post about, so I'll do one today: Do work in all the temples in Utah.

I don't always talk about my faith in blog posts, but it is definitely a big part of my life. I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the Mormon church. We believe in God and we believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. We believe in the eternal nature of families--that is, we believe that families can be together forever, even after death. We believe in loving and serving others. And really, we believe in a lot of great things, so if you want to learn more, feel free to ask me any questions or visit the FAQ section on mormon.org. 

One thing that sets my church apart from many other churches are the temples. We have our churches that we go to for Sunday services, but temples are different. Anyone can attend an LDS church, but temples are special and sacred, so they are reserved for people who have made certain promises to God about the way they will live and the ways they will commit their lives to Him. Because temples are so sacred, we don't share details about what happens inside. However, I think we can share more than we often do, so today I'll give you a general overview.

The first time you can enter a temple is when you are twelve, but at that point you can only do one ordinance in the temple: baptisms for the dead. To those unfamiliar with this ordinance, it may sound strange, but let me explain a bit. We believe that a person must be baptized by proper authority in order to return to live with God and family again. If someone has died without ever having the opportunity to learn about God and be baptized, should they be denied the opportunity to live with God and family again? We believe they should not, so we are baptized for those who have passed on, and then they can either accept or reject that baptism on the other side. Adults have the opportunity to do three additional ordinances: initiatories, endowments, and sealings. Initiatories are basically a pronouncement of blessings upon an individual, as long as they continue to live a righteous life. In an endowment session, individuals learn eternal truths and make promises to live specific patterns of righteousness. Sealings seal a family together forever. In civil marriages, there are always words like "as long as you both shall live" or "til death do you part." We do sealings to unite a husband and wife together beyond this life, into the eternities, and to unite children to parents as well. The first time you go to the temple as an adult, you do these three ordinances for yourself, but after that, you are again doing ordinances for people who passed on without ever receiving these ordinances.

Mormons are encouraged to live their lives worthily to go through the temple first for themselves, and then to stay worthy as they go through for deceased people. We are encouraged to attend the temple as often as possible. When I was growing up in Kansas, the closest temple was four hours away, which made it difficult to attend very frequently. But here in Utah, which is kind of the hub of Mormonism, there are currently fourteen temples in operation, all within a 4-hour radius of where I live, and half within a 1-hour radius. Since I am so blessed to be surrounded by so many temples, I wanted to make a goal to attend and do ordinances within each temple in Utah. This was a very involved task that took a lot of planning and dedication, but I did manage to complete it the day before my birthday :)

red dots signify operating temples. blue dots signify temples under
construction. yellow dot signifies a temple that has been announced.

a close-up of the wasatch front.

And now, photo evidence documenting my goal :) The temple is a special place, so I went with a lot of different people who mean a lot to me, including my family, Russ's family, some extended family, some of my best friends, and of course, my favorite human, Russ :)

Brigham City ~ 6.28.14 (sealings)

Vernal ~ 7.19.14 (endowment)

Provo ~ 8.5.14 (endowment)

Oquirrh Mountain ~ 8.15.14 (endowment)

Timpanogos ~ 11.8.14 (sealings)

Salt Lake City ~ 11.21.14 (endowment)

Logan ~ 2.14.15 (endowment)

Draper ~ 2.28.15 (initiatories)

St. George ~ 3.21.15 (ASL endowment)

Bountiful ~ 4.3.15 (endowment)

Ogden ~ 4.10.15 (sealings)

Manti ~ 4.22.15 (initiatories)

Monticello ~ 5.1.15 (initiatories)

Jordan River ~ 5.13.15 (endowment)

If you have any questions about temples or Mormonism, again feel free to ask me or visit mormon.org! I would love to share more of my faith with anyone interested in hearing about it :)