Teach your kids the importance of Temples, the Lord will help
I can remember two pivotal moments in my childhood that singularly led me to develop an understanding of the importance of temples. Both are simple moments that looking on the outside may not mean much.
The first was sometime between 1999 and 2001 (because that's when I lived at Fort Lewis, Washington). My parents had asked babysitters to come watch my sister and I before, but never for them to go to Seattle. Despite only being an hour drive, most of my memories of going to Seattle before high school involve going to the airport to see my dad away on some sort of military training mission. This time around, though, my parents were going the temple. I don't recall them doing it often, but I can still remember this time and how significant it was for them to make the trek north for something that wasn't a flight.
The second happened when I was in high school. I spent the first semester of my freshman year in Abilene, Texas. I ran cross country and was getting ready for our district meet in Lubbock. Lubbock, about two and a half hours away, was also home to our closest temple. With it being as far away as it was, our ward only went for youth temple trips once a year. This year's trip happened to coincide with the district meet, which ironically was in the same city at the same time. There was absolutely no chance of me being able to do both.
My coach (and everyone else at school, for that matter) was well aware of my religious beliefs and was very supportive. When I explained the situation, he explained to me what I already knew - if I didn't go to the meet I wouldn't be able to compete for the remainder of the season, but that my religious obligations should trump sports obligations. So that was the end of that, until the week of the meet. My coach pulled me into his office after our morning practice telling me he had exciting news. He told me that due to weather, the meet had been rescheduled for that Thursday rather than Saturday and that I would be able to attend both the meet and the temple.
As President Benson taught in the 1980s "The temple is a sacred place, and the ordinances in the temple are of a sacred character. Because of its sacredness we are sometimes reluctant to say anything about the temple to our children and grandchildren. As a consequence, many do not develop a real desire to go to the temple, or when they go there, they do so without much background to prepare them for the obligations and covenants they enter into" (Full text here). While it is important to teach our children appropriate lessons about the temple, it is also important to show them by making temple attendance a priority in our own lives.
As we attempt to teach our children the importance of the temple, and as we try to make it a priority in our own lives, the Lord will help us. No, he won't cause weather events every single time to change our schedule for us. There will be times when we have to make tough decisions. But I know that as we prayerfully seek His help and exercise faith, the Lord will use that existent faith as a seed to help our faith grow deeper (See Alma 32).
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