Finding Ways to Attend the Temple

This is a post I made for the weekly reading assignments for my religion class this Spring semester. I want to keep as a record of my testimony and thoughts.

Elder Bednar's talk "Honorably Hold a Name and a Standing" brought many thoughts into my mind. Elder Bednar recalled when he was called to be a Stake President he had a conversation with a friend who was just released as one. As they were discussion the calling his friend mentioned that his greatest wish as he served as a Stake President would have been to teach all the members of that Stake how important going to the temple is and how important the temple ordinances are to all. This has been a struggle for me and my husband as we have had children and having the temple be almost 2 hours away.

Two years ago at settlement time with our bishop he mentioned to us that we needed to attend the temple more and to find ways to teach our children the importance of the temple. We first took it as a chastisement from the Lord knowing it had been a while since we attended. But then we realized it was a push of faith to encourage us to find ways to attend the temple. As the month went by and we brain stormed together we realized we could be taking our children to the temple to view videos at the visitor center or to walk the grounds of the temple especially at Christmas time. We did that a few times and even did it with another family who were not LDS. Another time we attended a sealing of a couple in our ward and had a family member watch our children outside the temple. My husband being from Brazil and us missing some of the local foods from that country we were shocked to find out that there was a Brazilian restaurant/store only two exits away from the temple. We took that as a blessing!So now we are working on ways to attend the temple while visiting the Braizlian store.

As Elder Bednar goes on in the talk he mentioned that Satan despises the purity of the temple and the power that is felt within those walls. Satan does all he can to break us down into believing we don't belong. I can think back on so many occasions that I have allowed Satan's thoughts to come into my mind when I've wanted to attend the temple, but I kept thinking of I have a nursing baby or that's too many hours to pay a babysitter. This shouldn't hold us back, we need to find new ways to defeat Satan.

How have you found strength and ways to defeat Satan and attend the temple?

Talk from Elder Bednar: Honorably Hold a Name and Standing
 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/04/honorably-hold-a-name-and-standing?lang=eng