Sustained by Covenants

I've been reading our new book that was passed out in Relief Society a few months ago, Daughters in My Kingdom. So far it's giving me a deeper understanding and appreciation for the workings of the Relief Society organization and history.

One passage I really relate to is on page 29, the section "Exodus: Sustained by Covenants":

More than 5,000 Saints thronged the Nauvoo Temple after its dedication so they could receive the endowment and the sealing ordinance before embarking on their journey into an unknown future. They came to the temple all day and long into the night. President Brigham Young wrote that they were so anxious to receive their ordinances that "I have given myself up entirely to the work of the Lord in the Temple night and day, not taking more than four hours sleep, upon an average, per day, and going home but once a week."

The strength, power, and blessings of temple covenants would sustain the Latter-day Saints during their journey, when they would suffer cold, heat, hunger, poverty, sickness, accidents, and death. They were strengthened and empowered--spiritually prepared to leave Nauvoo on their arduous journey into the wilderness.

Like many Relief Society sisters, Sarah Rich was buoyed by temple blessings as she faced the challenges of the exodus. Prior to leaving Nauvoo, she received a calling from Brigham Young to work in the temple. She later said:

"Many were the blessings we had received in the house of the Lord, which has caused us joy and comfort in the midst of all our sorrows and enabled us to have faith in God, knowing He would guide us and sustain us in the unknown journey that lay before us. For if it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that temple by the influence and help of the Spirit of the Lord, our journey would have been like one taking a leap in the dark. To start out...in the winter as it were and in our state of poverty, it would seem like walking into the jaws of death. But we had faith in our Heavenly Father, and we put our trust in Him feeling that we were His chosen people and had embraced His gospel, and instead of sorrow, we felt to rejoice that the day of our deliverance had come."

I haven't experienced anything so harrowing as what Sarah Rich describes, of course, but I received my endowment six months before I moved to West Texas. The experience of moving was much more difficult than I expected, and a lot of trials I had never had to deal with before suddenly surfaced--heightened responsibility, professional expectations, subtle culture shock, health problems, acute loneliness, etc. I feel like, in a small way, my move to West Texas was my own personal exodus into the wilderness. I probably wouldn't have moved out here if there wasn't a Temple near, and the Temple has proved to be one of the greatest sustaining blessings I've had in the past few years.

Attending the Temple often has given me the power to avoid temptation, serve by performing ordinances for those who are unable to do it themselves, and raise my sensitivity to the Spirit of God to a higher level. I've received answers and direction for my life that I know I wouldn't have been able to receive in any other place. I know that the Temple is the House of God, and nowhere else can I be closer to him. It is the Mountain of the Lord, one of my most treasured places on earth.