Photo courtesy of LDS Media Library
I had no idea the Lord had been preparing me to enter the temple. Now I see how he led me step by step.
I guess you could say I was in a rut. I did the same thing every day: school, work, homework, sleep. Meanwhile, my friends were going on missions, getting married, and having babies. Don’t get me wrong—I was going to school and loving it, but I felt like I needed something more in my life.
During the 2014 general women’s session of conference, I was sitting in the Conference Center and listening to amazing women talk about how temple attendance had blessed their lives. As these women spoke, it struck me that I lived only three minutes from the Provo Utah Temple, yet I hadn’t been a single time that semester. In that moment, I made the goal to do baptisms at the temple more frequently that year.
In the year after that experience, I went to the temple about once a week. And I didn’t limit myself to just the Provo Temple: I performed temple baptisms at seven temples in the western United States. I felt good about what I’d done, but I thought there was more for me to do.
The following September, the thought came to me that I should receive my temple endowment. This idea surprised me; I had always assumed that I would wait until either I was going on a mission or getting married. So I dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it came.
A month later, I received an email from a friend who was on a mission. She told me to read the talk “Receive the Temple Blessings,” by Elder Richard G. Scott. As I did, I kept thinking about receiving my endowment, but I tried brushing away the thought. Then I read Elder Scott’s invitation to “come to the temple now,” and I knew he was talking to me. My friend hadn’t sent this talk to me by chance—she was directed by the Holy Ghost.
I had unknowingly spent the entire previous year preparing to be endowed. My thoughts about receiving my endowment were not at all random. Consequently, three months after I read Elder Scott’s talk, I received my endowment in the Sacramento California Temple.
People often say that the Lord works in mysterious ways, but when I look back on everything that led me to the temple, nothing seems mysterious. It was all part of the plan. Elder Scott’s words were the last push I needed to realize what Heavenly Father had in store for me.
Watch or read Elder Richard G. Scott’s talk “Receive the Temple Blessings” to learn more about preparing to enter the temple.
Source: LDS.org
—Emily Sopp, Mormon Insights contributor
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Find more insights:
Thinking about receiving your temple endowment? Read Carol F. McConkie’s advice in “Help Prepare Young Women Now for Temple Blessings Later.”
Read President Monson’s talk “Blessings of the Temple” to learn how going to the temple provides strength and guidance.