What's With Mormon Temples, Anyway?

I recently went to the temple to be endowed.

You may or may not understand that sentence. Let me break it down for you.

The temple is the House of the Lord. It's pretty much literally what it sounds like: Heavenly Father's house. Like your house or mine. If someone wanted to be near me, the surest way to find me would be to come to my house. When you want to be near God, you go to His house. It's the surest way to feel Him and His Spirit.

Inside the temple, we perform ordinances. Saving ordinances are ordinances that have to be performed in order to return to God's presence after death. These are baptism, confirmation, receiving the priesthood (for guys), initiatory, endowment, and sealing.

Last week in the temple, I did initiatory and then an endowment session. Together, these two ordinances are known as "being endowed" or "going through the temple," "receiving your endowment."

Obviously, it doesn't make sense for only members of one religion to receive the ordinances necessary to return to the presence of God. He loves all of His children. That's why in the temple, we not only perform ordinances for living people but also perform ordinances by proxy for dead people who did not receive these ordinances while upon the earth. The spirits of the dead can then choose to accept or reject the ordinances done on their behalf.

When a member of the church is twelve years old, they can interview for a limited use recommend. This recommend allows them to do baptisms and confirmations on behalf of the dead in the temple. In order to do further ordinances on behalf of the dead, you interview to receive another recommend, which I will explain further.

The endowment process starts with the bishop. If you decide to be endowed, you talk to him first.

Now, there are three reasons a person might get endowed: mission, marriage, or maturity. The third is the hardest to pinpoint. If you haven't gone on a mission and you haven't gotten married but you feel like you have reached a sufficient age and maturity to be endowed, you go and talk to your bishop. That's what I did.

Actually, I am a little younger than most who go through for reasons of maturity. But I knew there was nothing wrong with asking, as long as I was asking for the right reasons and was willing to accept that the answer might not be what I was hoping for.

I went to my bishop and counseled with him. We decided it would be appropriate for me to move forward. So I started studying and then I went in for a temple recommend interview.

At this point, I should explain that the same levels of worthiness are required for either type of temple recommend. The distinction between a limited use recommend and the full recommend is that when you have a limited use recommend, you don't make covenants in the temple. That's why you have to have a certain maturity to get a full recommend. Twelve-year-olds can have the same worthiness as adults who are getting married or going on missions, but they probably aren't ready to understand sacred promises, let alone make them.

Some people are critical that there are worthiness requirements to go to the temple at all. I'd like to make two points on this matter. One, you aren't going to be accepted into, say, Harvard Medical School if you aren't qualified. If they accept you but you aren't qualified, you aren't going to do well in your classes or be a very good doctor.

That's kind of how it is in the temple. Letting you into the temple when you aren't worthy makes about as much sense as letting you into Harvard Medical School when you aren't qualified. It would be pointless. It wouldn't do you any favors.

The second point I'd like to make is that the temple is not supposed to be exclusive. Actually, the idea is that everyone on earth should be temple worthy. Everyone on earth should be able to make covenants with God and be near Him. We're working hard to make that happen.

Receiving my endowment was one of the best experiences I've ever had. It was very much as it literally sounds--I was endowed with knowledge and felt endowed with power. I came away having a better understanding of my own purpose and identity as a daughter of God, a better understanding of God's purpose, identity, and love, and a better understanding of the atonement of Jesus Christ.