An Offering in Righteousness LDS Temple Worship

Today Zion is on my mind.

Perhaps it is because my adventure to the San Diego Temple last night is fresh on my mind.

I had the opportunity to go with a group of Young Adults and do a special “after hours” session of baptisms for the dead as we contributed our portion to our Stake’s “offering in righteousness”. I knew it would be a perfect time to take some family names to have work done for them in the Temple, so I decided to do some research for a friend of mine who gives many hours of service to the Young Adult Branch where I also am privileged to serve. As I entered the names of her family into the New Family Search Program I marveled once again at how fast and easy it is now to contribute and clear names for ordinance work to be done.

My research on her family line led me to a group of collateral relatives that needed their work done. The interesting thing about these people is that they were all from Independence, Jackson County, Missouri. Their time on this earth is precisely the time that the Saints would have felt persecution from those of the area. I felt a feeling of peace and healing as I researched this family line and contributed them to the Temple so that they could have their ordinance work done. It was a beautiful “come to Zion” moment for me.

Elder Neal A. Maxwell who creatively taught, some “people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon” also stated, “Since there are no instant Christians, to withhold what we can do to accelerate the process of the perfection of Zion until Zion is nearly perfected is to misconstrue mortality. To withhold all (or even much) of our fellowship, our talents, or our tithing until the Church and its people meet our “high” standard is like trying to book passage on Noah’s ark without driving a nail in a plank. We simply walk on board and ask to be shown to our stateroom and inquire as we enter the stateroom about what time dinner is served at the Captain’s table! We must sign on for the voyage with all our imperfections, and commit to help each other.”

I am grateful for the blessings of the Temple and the healing power it brings into our lives by application of the covenants we make there. It is a beautiful “ritualistic, ceremonial, memorial” that we are allowed to participate in to remind us that the power to save is only by the “strong hand of God.” It is an illustration of what it takes to live a consecrated life. It is a visual teaching of the process we need to follow to learn to “walk with God” as our Father Abraham did. But, last night, for me, it was also a moment to reflect on how we need to help each other, imperfections and all.

Do Not Become The Weakest Link

“You are a part of the great processes of God under which men and women have gone before you. All that you have of body and mind will be transmitted through you to the generations yet to come, and it is so important, so everlastingly important, my brothers and sisters, that you do not become a weak link in that chain of your generations.”
-Gordon B. Hinckley (Regional conference, Oahu, Hawaii, 23 January 2000)

“… You have all heard the adage that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. It will break at its weak point. Generally we will observe that our weak link is in the flesh. The devil knows the weak link, and when he undertakes to capture a soul he will strike at the weak point. There may be strength elsewhere, but he never attacks us where we are strong. He attacks where we are weak. …
-Elder Melvin J. Ballard (address delivered in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, 29 April 1928)

“I hope you could develop a strong feeling in your own families—and with you personally—about not wanting to become a weak link in the chain of your family and of your ancestors. I encourage you also to be a strong link for your posterity. Do not be the weak link. Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing to do? To think of that long chain and of all that work that needs to be done in the saving of souls and of the precious work that needs to be done, wouldn’t it be sad if you were the one who was the weak link that caused your descendants not to be able to be part of that strong linkage.”
David B. Haight, “Be a Strong Link,” Ensign, Nov 2000, 19–21

“Whether we descend from generations in the Church or are the first link in the generational chain, we have a responsibility to convey to our posterity a heritage of faith, manifest through our daily actions. Those who are newly converted members have a particularly great opportunity to become the pioneers for their ancestors and for their posterity... We must follow the lead of our beloved prophet, President Hinckley, who recently told the students at Ricks College: ‘To you I say with all of the energy of which I am capable, do not become a weak link in the chain of your generations. You come to the world with a marvelous inheritance. You come of great men and women. … Never let them down. Never do anything which would weaken the chain of which you are a fundamental part’ (Scroll, 14 Sept. 1999, 20). To me that means that we must do all in our power to ensure that we instill within our loved ones the great legacy of an abiding testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
-Stephen B. Oveson, “Our Legacy,” Ensign, Nov 1999, 29