Recently, Sherri reminded us in her post “Making Our Homes a Temple” that our homes and bodies should be places of purity–conduits to the Spirit of the Lord–akin to the temple. Her post was a beautiful reminder of the power we have to create a place of peace, purity, and rest within our homes and within our hearts.

Second to making our homes a temple, is the importance of making the temple a second home.

My first temple experience was less-than-perfect or even positive. I was a recent convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was young, and I understood so little of the Gospel then. I was unprepared to learn the advanced spiritual truths and make the deeply sacred covenants that are offered only in that Holy House. At first, I was dismayed, distraught, and disillusioned by my experience. But the experience served as a catalyst for a hunger that developed within my soul to someday make the temple my second home.

After only a handful of temple experiences while living in Provo, UT, and attending the Missionary Training Center to prepare to live in a foreign land serving as a missionary for eighteen months, I began to feel more comfortable in the temple, but was far from “at home” there. Although I would not return to the temple until I finished my missionary service due to the lack of a temple to attend in my mission country, I vowed to one day love the temple.

I was blessed to serve among a people who yearned for a temple in their area. They prayed mightily for one in most of the prayers I heard them utter. They spoke of their trips to a neighboring country where they were housed and would spend all day in the temple for a week doing the sacred work for their loved ones there that meant so much to them. I had quiet moments of listening as my dear friends shared their love of that sacred place. Again, the fire was kindled within me to love it too.

When I returned home and subsequently attended college, the Lord gave me two special friends who were serving in the temple at the time. They often talked of the joy and blessings they received from such a treasured assignment. I began to feel a yearning to experience that same thing. I was attending the temple regularly as a patron, but was scared to commit to an official assignment to work there each week. I knew from talking to my friends, that it was a large commitment–their shifts were often four to six hours weekly–but I continued to feel a nudge in this direction.

Finally, I submitted to the Spirit’s direction to accept a temple worker assignment. I volunteered, and humbly and with some trepidation, went and talked to a member of the temple presidency who set me apart as an ordinance worker in the temple.

I spent the next six years reporting weekly for my assignment. I learned the layout of the temple, and was privileged to wander and explore its halls, rooms, staircases, and quiet places. Physically, it was a place of great beauty, serenity, and peaceful solitude. The work there was tiring and demanding, but I was privileged to associate with the most wonderful friends who shared my duties, counseled me, and even mentored me in all things spiritual and temporal.

I endured moments of great physical fatigue there, offered many prayers to heaven, and I also shed tears of loneliness there. I experienced spiritual moments of peace and moments of exquisite joy and love with others. I learned more there than I can ever articulate here.

But the greatest thing that happened to me in all those years was that the temple became my second home. It was in my heart and soul. I truly learned to LOVE the temple.

I wasn’t just in the temple each week, THE TEMPLE WAS IN ME!

Only as I committed myself to being there every week to fulfill my assignment, did I learn to deeply love the temple. I realize, of course, that this opportunity can be had only by the privileged few who both live near a temple and are in the season of their life that allows them to do this sacred work so regularly; not many have that privilege. Still, the principle is the same for all–only through time and sacrifice spent in the temple can we truly come to appreciate all it has to offer for our spiritual welfare and growth and make it a second home.

Working as a temple worker was one of the greatest privileges and blessings of my life. It has developed a lasting love in me for that sacred place, and increased my faith in and love for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who makes all of the work therein possible.

President Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and my beloved prophet recently gave us wise counsel regarding the great importance of temple attendance. I review it each day as I microwave oatmeal for my kids, as I have a copy of this quote taped to the microwave door:

“…the assaults of the adversary are increasing exponentially, in intensity and in variety. Our need to be in the temple on a regular basis has never been greater. I plead with you to take a prayerful look at how you spend your time. Invest time in your future and in that of your family. If you have reasonable access to a temple, I urge you to find a way to make an appointment regularly with the Lord—to be in His holy house—then keep that appointment with exactness and joy. I promise you that the Lord will bring the miracles He knows you need as you make sacrifices to serve and worship in His temples.” (Nelson, October 2018 General Conference)

By following this wise counsel from our inspired prophet, we can each develop a greater love for the temple and eventually feel more at home there.

Is there any sacrifice too great to make the temple your second home?

~Emily Belnap