The Lord asks us to build temples

A few weeks ago I read Docterine and Covenants section 115 and I was actually a little surprised at how strongly the Lord was commanding the temple be built. Today my primary lesson was on Heavenly Father wanting us to build temples. I thought about these scriptures and how the reason he wants us to have temples on the earth is so we can go inside and commune with our God and do His work in a way that is beyond just our Sunday worship service.

I then remembered being 8 years old and living in Elko, Nevada. It was 1993 and the Salt Lake City temple was celebrating 100 years of being open. I heard a lot about the temple and my grandparents live 2 blocks from the temple. My Grandma Jo wanted her grandchildren to be able to touch the walls of the temple. She made arrangements for us to be able to do this. I remember touching the walls and thinking about what they were made of. Then I thought about the movie Mountain of the Lord. I remember watching the chisel away at these big rocks to turn them into the walls of the temple. Today in primary I told the kids that it was really difficult for them to do this job of hauling the stone and chiseling it into the blocks of the temple. I asked them why they did this. I was touched by the two replies I had. From a six year old, "Because Jesus told them that they should build a temple." and from a five year old, "When you have a temple you can be sealed together as families." They are both exactly right. Our Heavenly Father wants us to have temples on the earth and has told us to build them and to go to the temple. In the temple we make covenants and are given promises of eternal families. I am thankful that there are temple on the earth today and that they truly are a house of God.