Family

This weekend I have had the opportunity to really contemplate about the subject of family. On Saturday, April 11th my grandpa Don Walter Kleinman passed away. It was a blessing for him that he was able to go pretty quickly and without too much pain, and it has also proven to be a blessing for my family as well. We have all drawn closer together and been kinder to each other in the few days since his death. It has also been a happy time anticipating the arrival of my extended family from Phoenix--some of whom will be here later today with the rest following tomorrow. Also, my sister Brooke flew in last night from California and will be here until Saturday! I love having our family all together like this. My family is the most important thing to me in the world--I would rather do things with them at home than go out with friends. And that is one of the main reasons that I love having the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. Through Him we can all live eternally as a family. Having been sealed together in the temple for time and all eternity, there is not much that could stop us from being together forever. It's a very comforting thought during this time of Grandpa's death. When my family went to visit my grandma and tell her the news she seemed to take it very well and I know that is a product of the comfort of knowing that they can be together forever.

Temples, Temples, Temples...

It seems like every time I hear a lesson of a spiritual nature lately it has something to do with temples. Some of these are to be expected, since I'm in a family history class, and we've been studying the portions of the Doctrine and Covenants that have to do with revelations about the temples, but I hear about them from more than just those two classes. This past weekend was the Latter-day Saint General Conference and I was surprised at how many of the speakers talked about the temples. Maybe it's just because I've been learning so much about the temples lately that I noticed it more than before, but it was a recurring lesson-learned throughout General Conference for me. There was a time in my life when I went to the temple every week with my sisters and a few of my friends. We would wake up early before we had school and go to the temple before we had to get to school. Despite the early hour we had to go in order to be able to make it back for school on time, I really loved attending the temple regularly. I felt the blessings of attending the temple in my life as well--I just felt like my life was going more smoothly than it would have otherwise. I knew the benefits that would come to my life through regular temple attendance, but I didn't fully understand the extent of the blessings. While I've been learning about the temple this past little while I have realized more of the blessings that can come from going to the temple--not only personal blessings but more about the blessings that we can bring to those who have died and still need their temple ordinances performed for them. The blessings are literally endless. A couple of years ago I went to Central America with a seminary group for a Book of Mormon lands tour. While we were there we attended a ward conference in Guatemala. With what little Spanish I am able to understand this is what I got from their Sacrament Meeting: You should do everything in your power to be able to go to the temple (whether he was talking about for the first time or on a regular basis I didn't catch)--even if it means going without meals to be able to save up money for transportation to the temple. This ward is located only a few hours away from the temple in Guatemala City but it was still quite a sacrifice for them to be able to make the trip to Guatemala City in order to attend the temple. And here I am within fifteen or so minutes of two temples with many others nearby and I am no longer attending regularly. I get caught up in life and miss out on all of the wonderful blessings of the temple--when others would make great sacrifices to even be able to go once. I think that's one reason why the messages of the temple have been hitting me so strong lately--I need to make better use of them.