June 2016

Prayerfully study this material and seek to know what to share. How will understanding “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” increase your faith in God and bless those you watch over through visiting teaching? For more information, go to reliefsociety.lds.org.


Temple Ordinances and Covenants
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All the ordinances necessary for salvation and exaltation are accompanied by covenants with God. “Making and keeping covenants means choosing to bind ourselves to our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ,” said Linda K. Burton, Relief Society general president.¹

Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “The Lord said, ‘In the ordinances … the power of godliness is manifest.’

“There are special blessings from God for every worthy person who is baptized, receives the Holy Ghost, and regularly partakes of the sacrament.”²

“When men and women go to the temple,” said Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, “they are both endowed with the same power, which is priesthood power …

“… All men and all women have access to this power for help in their lives. All who have made sacred covenants with the Lord and who honor those covenants are eligible to receive personal revelation, to be blessed by the ministering of angels, to commune with God, to receive the fulness of the gospel, and, ultimately, to become heirs alongside Jesus Christ of all our Father has.”³

 

Additional Scriptures

1 Nephi 14:14; Doctrine and Covenants 25:13; 97:8; 109:22

 

Living Stories

In 2007, four days after a massive earthquake in Peru, Elder Marcus B. Nash of the Seventy met branch president Wenceslao Conde and his wife, Pamela. “Elder Nash asked Sister Conde how her little children were. With a smile, she replied that through the goodness of God they were all safe and well. He asked about the Condes’ home.

“‘It’s gone,’ she said simply.

“… ’And yet,’ Elder Nash noted, ‘you are smiling as we talk.’

“’Yes,’ she said, ‘I have prayed and I am at peace. We have all we need. We have each other, we have our children, we are sealed in the temple, we have this marvelous Church, and we have the Lord. We can build again with the Lord’s help.’ …

“What is it about making and keeping covenants with God that gives us the power to smile through hardships, to convert tribulation into triumph … ?”

“The source is God. Our access to that power is through our covenants with Him.”⁴

Consider This

How do temple ordinances and covenants strengthen and empower us?

Notes

1. Linda K. Burton, “The Power, Joy, and Love of Covenant Keeping,” Liahona, Nov. 2013, 111.
2. Neil L. Andersen, “Power in the Priesthood,” Liahona, Nov. 2013, 92.
3. M. Russell Ballard, “Men and Women in the Work of the Lord,” Liahona, Apr. 2014, 48–49.
4. See D. Todd Christofferson, “The Power of Covenants,” Liahona, May 2009, 19, 20–21.


Suggested handout (download)

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