Come and Claim Your Blessings

This morning I went to the Temple. I haven't been in a while and wow, it's been too long. 

I'd like to share with you just a little bit of the experience I had this morning. I've recently been more stressed than usual because of some recent events in the mission placing a lot more weight on my shoulders. I've been having some personal challenges weighing heavenly on my mind as well. 

I echo the words of Boyd K. Packer when I say that I don't know a lot in this world. In fact, the more I learn the more I've come to see how little I actually do know. But there are some things that I do know of... I know that God lives and that Jesus Christ is his son who came to the earth to die for us. 

This is a spiritual knowledge that cannot be taken from me by any power on this earth. I'd like you all to know that I have a similar knowledge, in other words, a similar testimony of the holiness of the Lord's temples. In the Temple I feel closer to my Savior and farther from the world, farther from the weakness of the natural man that I fight with every day closer than anywhere else on this earth. 

Elder Packer himself said, "Sometimes our minds are so beset with problems and there are so many things clamoring for  attention at once that we just cannot think clearly and see clearly. At the temple the dust of distraction seems to settle out, the fog and the haze seem to lift and we can “see”  things that we were not able  to see before and find a way through our troubles that we had not previously known. The Lord will bless us as we attend to the sacred ordinance work of the temples. Blessings there will not be limited to  our temple service. We will be  blessed in all of our affairs ." 

Our Temples are specially set apart and dedicated for the Lords holy work. His power is there, his peace is there. I feel it every time that I go. Whether I need specific guidance or comfort or I'm unsure of what I need, the house of the lord has always been a place of refuge for me in the few years that I've had the privilege to attend. I love the temple and everything that it stands for. It is a shining light in an ever darker world. 

"Our labors in the temple cover us with a shield and a protection, both individually and as a people. So come to the temple—come and claim your blessings. It is a sacred work."

Elder Brunsdale