Importance of Temple Work

There is one subject to which I wish to briefly refer. I wish to call your attention to your temple work. This is a very important consideration, or should be, in our lives and in our home affairs. Let us contemplate it. Thousands, and I might say millions, of dollars have been expended by this people, through the commandments of the Lord, in building temples. We have four in this State. They are convenient to a great majority of the people of the Church, not only in this State, but in the surrounding States. Now, we must all remember, that a hundred years hence, in all probability, every one of us will be on the other side of the veil, and we have kindred there, fathers and mothers, grand-fathers and grandmothers, and great grand-fathers and great grand-mothers. A great many of our kindred have left this existence, any many of them without a knowledge of the Gospel, perhaps the majority of them. We are here as their children, and they have an interest in us and we have an interest in them, because the keys have been revealed whereby the hearts of the children are turned to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to the children. Those keys and powers have been revealed in our day and time, and we now have opportunities, while in life, to prosecute this labor in their behalf and to extend to our kindred beyond the veil the greatest redeeming plan of salvation. The opportunity is now afforded us. Opportunities are also continually opening before us, whereby our genealogies may be obtained. I have learned, through experience, that people who have an interest in their temple work, records and genealogies, obtain those genealogical records, to a great extent. Some people spend hundreds of dollars, perhaps thousands of dollars, in traveling and gathering up the records of their forefathers, while others are indifferent in this regard, and scarcely think of it from one year's end to another. We are not going to live forever, none of us. We may pass away any moment. I have known of many instances of this kind, where people have put off from time to time and from year to year, their work in behalf of some of their kindred dead, and have finally passed away themselves without doing this work. I know of such cases in Salt Lake City and all over the country. Now, brethren and sisters, do not forget this labor. Do not put it off until you are entirely ready, because, if you do, perhaps you will not get ready at all. Your way may be hedged up, for Satan is on the move and is looking into our affairs continually and he may hedge up our way, wherever the opportunity is afforded him, that we shall not be able to redeem our kindred dead. Therefore, I wish to urge this matter upon you. In the midst of all our duties and labor, let us not forget our fathers and mothers, and our kindred on the other side of the veil. ¶

God bless you, and may He lead us in the paths of life; that our minds may be stirred up by way of remembrance of the duties pertaining to us in this our second estate. ¶