The Wonderful Life of the Gillands :)

Temple Marriage

           I married my sweet heart 4 years ago in the Twin Falls temple. The temple allows you to be sealed for all time and eternity with your family. I am not just sealed to my husband but I am sealed to my wonderful children. Elder Richard G. Scott said in 2011 at General Conference, “The temple sealing has greater meaning as life unfolds. It will help you draw ever closer together and find greater joy and fulfillment.” I didn’t realize how amazing and important my temple sealing was the day I got married but now I am eternally grateful for it. Because my husband and I decided to marry in the temple, are can be an eternal family. This means more to me than anything else.  We have a daughter that was born on June 14, 2015. She only lived an hour before passing away.  We will see her again and have the chance to raise her.  We are bonded together by something stronger than man or this world could offer. We are bonded through our covenant we made with the Lord.
          I love what Ezra Taft Benson said,” The temple is an ever-present reminder that God intends the family to be eternal.” Now whenever I see a temple I know that not only is it a house of the Lord but it gives me strength in knowing that I have an eternal family.  There are many things in life that can be taken away but no one can take away the eternal blessings that the temple gives. It blesses my family and my marriage.
Marriage is tried by time. No marriage will go untouched by trials.  Temple marriages give you an assurance that you have made a covenant with the Lord and your husband to love one another and to work together through the good and the bad. Elder Bruce C. Hafen urged,
“..when troubles come to a covenant marriage, the husband and wife work them through. They marry to give and to grow, bound by covenants to each other, to the community, and to God. Contract companions each give 50 percent; covenant companions each give 100 percent…Marriage is by nature a covenant, not just a private contract one may cancel at will.”
          Marriage is meant to be hard at times. It is also meant to be full of love and love for one another and for your children.  There is nothing greater that I could have done than for my children than that of matting their father in the temple. I want them to also know and understand that the temple is a place of faith and joy. That is were their greatest dreams will come and that they need to always live worthily to go and keep their covenants. Being sealed is just the beginning to something that we need to protect and treasure for the rest of time.
           I also want my children to know the importance of the priesthood. Without the priesthood we wouldn’t be able to have the blessings of being sealed as an eternal family.  I love that my husband has chosen to live in a way that he can hold the priesthood. It is an eternal role that he has.  I also know that I receive blessings because of it. Its blessings encompass our whole family.  President Joseph Fielding Smith bore his testimony on this by saying,
                     “These blessings are also poured out upon our wives and daughters and upon all the faithful women of the Church. These good sisters can prepare themselves, by keeping the commandments and by serving in the Church, for the blessings of the house of the Lord. The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift and blessing that can be obtained by his sons, for neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord.”

           Marriage is a gift from God. I am so grateful for it. A quote that I loved from Elder Richard G. Scott was, “Two of the vital pillars that sustain Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness are marriage and the family.” I hope my husband and I will be able to teach our children the importance of a temple marriage and having a family. There would be nothing greater than to see them getting sealed in the temple and having eternal families.