The Holy Temple and Eternal Marriage

I am so grateful for temples in our country. To think of the cost of money and time it takes some members in the world to get to the temple, I remind myself each week as I prepare to attend the temple (especially when I want to sleep in instead), I think of this talk my Pres Monson and about the Saints from the Amazon and New Zealand. We read this as a family and really spent some time going over the story of the Mou Tham family in detail and they were in awe as we were to see the dedication this family had to getting their family to the temple to be sealed.

My brothers and sisters, temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service.

Elder Richard G Scott has a special place in my heart. I listened to a conversation he gave and he spoke of how he still feels his dear wife near him even though sh passed away several years ago. He has never re-married and has no desire to. He loves his wife and it is clear he looks forward to the day when he will join her in the next life. I think Gabriel and I relate a little to Elder Scott and his wife in the loss of their children. This loss is sad, but I've seem muy children's testimony of the Plan of Salvation grow as we talk openly and often of our Jared, who is with Grandpa Gore, Papi and Grandma Sanchez, with Uncle Louie, Grammy Francis, and the many other family members who are learning of the gospel and who are waiting on us to do their temple work.

Our seven children are bound to us by the sacred ordinances of the temple. My precious wife, Jeanene, and two of our children are beyond the veil. They provide a powerful motivation for each remaining member of our family to live so that together we will receive all of the eternal blessings promised in the temple...
I remember well the day [our little son Richard] passed away. As Jeanene and I drove from the hospital, we pulled over to the side of the road. I held her in my arms. Each of us cried some, but we realized that we would have him beyond the veil because of the covenants we had made in the temple. That made his loss somewhat easier to accept.