Temples & Angels - A whole lot bigger than we know
We are from the United States and were fortunate to live within a 10-minute drive of the Denver Colorado Temple. Because of this blessing, I have been able to attend the temple frequently. I want to share with you one specifically memorable experience that I had recently at the temple, but first I need to tell you a little bit about my family.
I was raised in a small town in Utah as the youngest of 6 children. I don’t know about you, but the trials and tragedies of life have configured my family in ways that I could have never predicted. I have a brother just 13 months older than me who died from cancer 19 years ago. He and I were particularly close because of our ages, and it was a very difficult time because he left his wife and three very small children, one of which, named Natalie, who was only a few months old when her father died.
A few years later, this departed brother’s wife remarried my other and older brother, and they have since raised the three children together and added one more of their own.
This past May, just before we came here to Peru, I was invited to go to the temple with this older brother’s family because the daughter, Natalie, was receiving her endowments to go on a mission to the Philippines.
The covid restrictions made it so that the patrons went directly to the endowment room from changing, and only 10 people were allowed in each session. I was the last to come into the room after changing to where my older brother, his wife and her parents were seated near the front as well as the three now adult children whose father died 19 years ago.
As soon as I entered the room, I was startled because I could feel so much energy. The room felt like it was filled with joyful people moving all around me reuniting and reverently celebrating this event with Natalie. I could not see these angels, but I instantly recognized them as family because they felt so familiar to me and they were not only my immediate family, but they gathered from generations and generations ago. It made me realize that this idea of eternal families is much bigger than we often think.
This past Sunday as we attended a Sacrament meeting in Arequipa, a woman spoke about hearing members from the states talk about their ancestors who have been in the church for generations and how the temple experience must be different for them. She told the congregation that in 100 years, their children can have that experience.
I thought about this and realized that new converts don’t need to wait very long for that experience because if they prepare themselves to receive their endowments and go through the temple, they can bring the names of the ancestors to the temple, and soon they can have the endowment room full of joyful generations like I did that day in May.
Elder Holland said in the 2008 November Conference that angels are usually not seen. Sometimes they are. But seen or unseen, they are always near. Sometimes their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole world. Sometimes the messages are more private. Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. But most often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, and guidance in difficult times.
I have a testimony that this church is true and that the blessings of the temple are limited only by our lack of knowledge of the scope of God’s work and Glory. I urge you to go to the temple often and bathe in its blessings so that you can have access to God’s love through His angels. I know that Jesus is the Christ and through Him, we can be saved.
“Has the day of miracles ceased?
Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men?
Behold I say unto you, Nay; for … it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men. …
For behold, they are subject unto [Christ], to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.”
