Teaching Children about Temples

This last Sunday I taught a lesson to the women at church about teaching our children about the temple. It was based off of a talk I heard at our last Stake Conference. Elder Larry Lawrence from the Quorum of the Seventy gave it and I just loved his message. It is, after all, our goal to be together as a family forever and the temple is how and where it happens!

So, if you're interested, here are my notes from his talk combined with two others. There's a whole lot of goodness here. (Special thanks to Holly for typing up her notes for me since my sweet hubby accidentally chucked mine. And to that same sweet hubby who found me the supporting materials!)

Don't be afraid to say too much.

… in a family setting, there are many precious truths that, with sensitivity and common sense, will help prepare our children for the temple.  ~Carol B. Thomas

            President Howard W. Hunter has said: “Let us share with our children the spiritual feelings we have in the temple. And let us teach them more earnestly and more comfortably the things we can appropriately say.

• Point your children to the temple
• Hang pictures of the temple in your home
• Share answers to prayers received in temples (house of prayer)

In the peace of these lovely temples, sometimes we find solutions to the serious problems of life. Under the influence of the Spirit, sometimes pure knowledge flows to us there. Temples are places of personal revelation. When I have been weighed down by a problem or a difficulty, I have gone to the House of the Lord with a prayer in my heart for answers. These answers have come in clear and unmistakable ways. ~President Ezra Taft Benson

• Attend temple open houses
• Describe temple rooms (Celestial = God's living room)
• Make family trips to do baptisms
• Teach of Adam and Eve
• Show temple clothes.
• Take teaching moments as they come.

Where may we teach our children? Family home evening is the formal setting, but there are so many more places where we may talk about our spiritual feelings for the temple. One of my favorite times was when my children were in bed at night. Occasionally I would lie on their bed and tell them of spiritual things. There in the peace and the quiet, the sweet Spirit can bear testimony to their heart and soul that the things you are saying are true. ~Carol B. Thomas

• Modesty and light to the world

What it means to be worthy for the temple. Can we teach our children that receiving one’s endowment and the wearing of the sacred garment will not require a change of wardrobe or lifestyle if the principles of temple worthiness are understood and lived in their earlier years? A young woman who wears knee-length skirts will not have to buy a new wardrobe after she receives her endowment in the temple. A young man who anticipates going to the temple will respect the Church’s moral standards in his social behavior. ~Carol B. Thomas

• We can never become like God without temple ordinances
• Covenants are a great blessing.

In the ordinances of the temple is the power of God made manifest

• The temple is the Lord’s classroom.
• Understanding gospel language.
• Pray about temple in family prayers
• Do children know temple recommend questions?
• LEAD OUR CHILDREN TO THE TEMPLE
• If we go, they will go.
• Pray in family prayers that they will marry in the temple. 
• Talk about your Wedding day.

The temple is an ever-present reminder that God intends the family to be eternal. How fitting it is for mothers and fathers to point to the temple and say to their children, “That is the place where we were married for eternity.” By so doing, the ideal of temple marriage can be instilled within the minds and hearts of your children while very young. ~Ezra Taft Benson

• Trips to visit temples (other than our own temple)
• Picture of your child and/or family at the temple
• Sing, “I love to see the temple” often in the home/car/grocery store, etc.

Resources:

·        Carol B. Thomas, “Preparing Our Families for the Temple,” Ensign, May 1999, 12

·        Ezra Taft Benson, “What I Hope You Would Teach Your Children about the Temple,” Tambuli, Apr 1986, 1

·        Elder Larry Lawrence, Columbia Stake Conference, Saturday Adult Session, May 2010