July 7, 2013 lesson

Lesson for July 7, 2013 Paige Gibson gave the lesson on “Having the Spirit of the Temple is Our Hearts and Homes.” She said that the goal for our ward is to set individual goals about temple attendance. She started with a handout that said, “My beloved brothers and sisters, may we make whatever sacrifices are necessary to attend the temple and to have the spirit of the temple in our hearts and in our homes.” Several sisters told about road blocks to going, such as children, not scheduling properly, and not making it a priority. Blessings are peace, eternal perspective, and eternal families. We talked about how important it is to make the sacrifice to go. President Monson’s talk in April 2011 gives good information about going to the temple. It is worth whatever you have to go through. In his closing remarks President Monson made that statement about making it a priority. Paige said she sometimes treats the temple as a check off list. But she realizes that the blessings of the temple are supposed to be a part of our everyday lives and our homes. We discussed making the home have some semblance of décor that is like the temple, so children and we are prepared from an early age to want to go to the temple. We went to D&C 88:119 that says to organize ourselves and make a house of order and a house of God. Everything in the temple is there for a reason, said Sister Craig, so less is more. Sister Linda Campbell said we shouldn’t be fanatic about it, or we can alienate our children and grandchildren, but music also plays an important part in creating the atmosphere. We should also make happy noises be part of our homes, and soft voices if we can. Sister Galloway said in the temple we all have jobs to do and people know what their calling is in the home. We need to make our homes a place where our family wants to be and for our homes to be places of refuge. We can dedicate our homes to the Lord so the Spirit can be there. One sister said the cleanliness is important. When we go to the temple, it’s clean, but we have to have a balance and be welcoming. Sister Dorothy Davis said a house needs to be clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy. Our house should be central to our family like the temple is central to the gospel. Family history is something we can do before we go to the temple that can point us to the temple. Baptism is the foundation, so we need to make sure our family is all baptized and have received the Holy Ghost. Each Sunday when we take the sacrament, it is a good opportunity to renew our covenants. If we talk about the temple with our children, they will feel excited and positively about the temple. Sister Craig said it’s fun to point out that certain family members have been married in different temples. We have two temples and their dedications and open houses coming up in the near future that we can go to, which is especially important to create memories about temples for children who are not old enough to go now. To have the temple in our hearts we must go again and again. We can do our family history and learn about our ancestors, so we can get to know them and have it tie our family together. Sister Cantrell tries to remember the actual ceremony and ponder it when she comes home. She says she learns something new every week. Sister Bahr said her teenagers want to go to the temple, even if they can’t do sessions. Paige said we can record our feelings in our journals and let our children see how the temple changes us. She says that giving this lesson caused her to study information about the temple and it made a difference for her. One sister said her 91-year-old grandfather all of a sudden went through the temple for the first time and he was able to be sealed to his wife and his daughter. It gives him peace now. Our covenants are meant to change us, so we should live our covenants. Also, testifying about our temple blessings can change us and influence others. There are so many blessings we can receive from the temple.