When I visit the temple, I truly feel the presence of the Lord. His loving arms embrace me, and I know that He knows what I’m going through. More than that, I cannot say, because it is a feeling that can only be felt, not explained.
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acv2: When I visit the temple, I… by acv2
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Val John Jennings by staff
The Testimony of Val John Jennings
In the Book of Mormon, Jarom 1:4, we read: “And there are many among us who have many revelations, for they are not all stiffnecked. And as many as are not stiffnecked and have faith, have communion with the Holy Spirit, which maketh manifest unto the children of men, according to their faith.”
My stubbornness has been subdued by the love I have found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know I have felt the Spirit and, although, I have not seen angels, I am sure that I have been ministered to by them, even to the preservation of my life. I have been saved from serious injury and near death both in times of obedience and in times of disobedience. God isn’t finished with me yet.My testimony has grown over the years. I was born into a family that had pioneer ancestry on both sides.
My father didn’t join the church until after he met my mother and they were married in Reno, Nevada.
Many years later we were sealed as a family in the Manti temple. My mother was a great-grandaughter of John Doyle Lee and grandaughter of Joseph Leland Heywood, both noteable Mormon pioneers. She was a Prince. Her great-grandfather, George Prince was a convert from South Africa, having migrated there from England. His testimony is noteable and published. Her grandparents served as stake patriarchs and often gave testimony to the truths of the gospel.
My interest in genealogy began early as I thought I was kin to the Dalton Gang and Al Jennings, western outlaw. I later found out that the kinship wasn’t very close. My relatives had done a lot of genealogy and I read about my ancestors and was very impressed. It took me many years to find my connections, but I feel a special kinship to those who set the stage for the Restoration.
As a youth, I was raised by goodly parents and given every opportunity. I became an eagle scout, served a mission in the North Central States, married in the temple, and began to raise a family of seven wonderful children. I had a very righteous wife, but failed to cultivate the closeness that is needed to sustain our marriage, and later divorced. I have recently served as a senior missionary with my wife, Karla. We have a testimony of the value of the Career Workshop.
I feel I have always had a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. It has certainly been tested and grown over the years. My less than stellar journey through parenthood left us with disfunctional and troubled children. However, three of them are active, married in the temple, and serving faithfully. Karl, Kathy, and Donald served on missions.I have given a lot of reflection to the disinformation that others give regarding the church. My ancestor, John Doyle Lee, supposedly wrote a “Confessions” that tells of unrighteous acts by the church leaders. However, as it was published by others after his death, it is not possible to confirm what was his story and what was given as truth by those who try to destroy faith by publishing doubt. It has, however, given me a springboard to evaluate what I know from the Spirit of Truth and compare it to what is delivered by the agents of the “Author of Deceit”.
Joseph Smith said that his name would be had for good and evil throughout the world. That is true prophecy. He brought forth the Book of Mormon that is the word of God. The testimony comes from reading it. It brings into the heart and mind the desire to live righteously and teaches how to commune with the Holy Spirit. It delivers true testimony. It brings forth good fruit.
My testimony is born in the poetry I write. A few examples can be found at poetry.com and mormonwiki.com. The following are a sampling of what I have written:
A Godly Garden
A Walk in the Woods
Baptism
Boy Scout Basics
He Walked
Integrity
One Starlight Night
Returning HomeThis poem is written for this sharing of testimony. May it convey the Spirit to the reader!
My Testimony
I have a testimony.
Yes, I can say it’s true.
God has walked beside me
and helped to pull me through.Doubt and faith can not both share
the same invading space.
Faith is a gift of God, my friend.
With it your doubt erase.Faith, Repentance, Baptism,
They lead you to the gate.
Enter obediently into His arms.
Let Him there embrace.
The Holy Ghost is your friend.
He testifies of Christ.He calls upon our memory.
His counsel, there, is wise.Ask, Knock, Invite Him in.
Our Savior has come to stay.
We can know his will for us.He asks us all to pray.
I’ve asked my Heavenly Father.
Is there only one?
One way, one hope, one path?He answered, Yes, my son.
So did brother Joseph.
He saw them both, divine.
My testimony is my witness.
And yes, It’s truly mine!Val John Jennings is a published poet, genealogist, webmaster, scouter, grandparent and an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his wife, Karla, reside in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Maxwell J. Drown by staff
I believe in God. I believe He loves us all.I believe we existed in a spiritual form before we were born. I believe in Adam and Eve and in the Garden of Eden.
I believe that God reveals his will to us through revelation and inspiration. I believe the words of the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price.
I believe in Prophets including a living Prophet.
I believe that God answers our prayers. I believe that my prayers have been answered by God many times.
I believe in the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ which inspire men to do good.
I believe that Jehovah created the Earth under the authority of God. I believe that Jesus Christ is Jehovah. I believe that Jesus Christ walked the Earth and atoned for our sins. I believe that it is through His great atonement that we can be forgiven of our sins and return to God.
I believe that Satan is real and seeks to destroy the souls of all men. I believe that we are in a real and literal war against Satan. I believe that we have the power and ability to win this war.
I believe in the Priesthood, the authority to act in God’s name.
I believe that the family unit (a man, a woman and their children) is sacred and eternal.
I believe that we will continue to exist after we die. I believe that we must perform some physical ordinances in order to prepare ourselves for the next life. I believe in baptism. I believe in temples and in the ordinance work performed in temples.
I believe this life is a test. I believe that we will be resurrected and our life will be judged.
-Maxwell J. Drown (http://www.break-line.net/?page_id=23)
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Giuseppe Martinengo: a testimony about the Mormon Temple by staff
This is an interesting story about what happened to my family approximately 19 years ago in the Swiss temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.At that time, in 1988, my wife and I lived in Asti, Italia. My wife, Giovanna, was expecting our first child and the closest temple was in Zollikofen, Switzerland. We had been to the temple previously only a few times and we enjoyed being there. A trip to the temple would require several hours, and as new parents we were extremely concerned with all the changes that would happen after the birth of our first son. We were thinking that probably we wouldn’t be able to go to the temple for several months, at least.
Therefore, in spite of Giovanna being seven months pregnant, we decided to accept the invitation of a member of our branch to go once more to the temple. Our relatives were not active members of the Church and this idea seemed to them a little crazy, but we felt that it was the right thing to do.
The trip was good and we went to the temple. While we were there, inside the temple, I had a marvelous feeling about the joy of being father. I had never been a father before and therefore that feeling was amazing. In fact, that feeling started growing so strong that I thought: “whow, how can I expect two more months, after having such wonderful feelings?”.
Half an hour later we were outside sitting in front of the temple when suddenly my wife started feeling in pain. We were not sure what was the problem but we thought it was nothing serious.
A little later, however, the pain came back and stronger until a friend (who already had children) finally told us that probably the baby was trying to come out! That didn’t seem good. To be in a foreign country, away from family and friends, not speaking the language (German), and especially having to deal with a possible premature birth was something really scary.
However, the people who took care of the housing for members of the Church traveling to the temple, Monique and François Portellano, were extremely helpful and directed us to the nearest hospital, in Jegenstorg.
At the hospital the doctors realized that Luca, our son, was trying to come out sooner than expected. They tried for several hours to stop it, but it was impossible. On May 13, 1988, around 12 pm, he was born, weighting only 3 pounds.
That was one of my first great experiences with inspiration and revelation in the Temple. After that, I learned that strong feelings in the Temples have usually practical consequences in our lives if we pay attention to them.
To keep Luca alive, since he had a problem in his lungs, the doctors put him in intensive care and there he was for a couple of weeks. After that they decided that it would be less expensive to move him to Torino, Italy, using the hospitla plane than keep him in intensive care for longer time.
Luca was bound to stay in Torino’s hospital for another two months before he was able to come home.
In the first year of his life he needed a lot of care and it was particularly interesting for us to hear from an Italian doctor, not a Mormon, that we had been lucky that he was born in Switzerland, close to the Bern University Pediatric Hospital where they were experienced and fast enough to save him.
Coming from a non-Mormon that was a confirmation of what we already knew, that our trip to Switzerland, to go to the Temple, was the right decision and one that probably saved Luca.
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Deanna Birdzell by staff
My name is Sister Deanna Birdzell. I am serving a mission here in the Washington DC Temple. I am from Bountiful, Utah. I am a widow of 8 1/2 long, long years. I arrived here in Maryland on January 31 of this year. I will tell you of my little story….When my husband passed away, he was the only member of the Church (that I knew about) with the Birdzell name. He came to me (after he died) and said, “Deanna, I am okay. I had to come to this side to teach the Birdzell family of the gospel so that you could get their Temple work done.” From that day on, I have searched and searched and the Lord has directed me to three wonderful people who are not members of our church, but they have sent me thousands and thousands of names.
I have put all of these names into my PAF file and today have more than 76,000 names in that file. Now, I have to say that many of the names are on my side also, and I being from pioneer ancestry,much of my side of the temple work has been done, but none of Mike’s was done. So I began – to make a long story short, have been able to have several thousand ordinances work completed. When I came here, I brought quite a lot of names with me, and having no Priesthood with me, I passed out some of my brother cards to those I with whom have become acquainted . . .
About two months ago, I received in the mail a note from a Larry Kump. He, not knowing that I was here in this area, sent this note to my Bountiful address and it was forwarded back here to me. In this letter Brother Kump wanted to let me know that he had been impressed that the brother he had done the work for had indeed accepted the gospel and was so thrilled to have had his work done at the temple. In this note from Larry, he put inside his ‘business card’ and so I e-mailed him and told him how thankful I was to have him do one of my names.
So we began corresponding a little bit. On his web site (http://kumpster.blogspot.com) there is a picture of him. He told me that he goes to the Temple every Saturday morning and does a session at 8:00 AM. So I knew that he attended the Temple each Saturday but on the past two months I have been a sealing secretary on Saturday morning shift so I probably wouldn’t get
the opportunity to be a follower or a patron on that 8:00 AM Endowment session. Yesterday, I was going to the sixth floor to be secretary in the sealing office and this gentleman got on the elevator with me.I looked at him and thought to myself, “Could this be Larry Kump?” So I asked him what was his name. He replied “Kump.” He then looked at me and looked at my name tag and he said “Sister Birdzell?”.
Yes, it was me. And he was going to do sealings today, not a session. Now, how ironic is that? So we were able to talk and to get acquainted and it was a thrill for me to get to know him. He told me that I reminded him of Anna the Prophetess (who saw the Christ child at the Temple). What a compliment. How kind he was. I am certainly not a prophetess, but I certainly appreciate his compliment.
Another “strange thing” is that the day a brother gave Larry the card for Temple work to be done for one of my husband’s family (Birdzell), Larry said that he is sure that the name tag on the ordinance brother’s name said “Brother Birdzell,” and he didn’t know that there aren’t any Birdzell brethren working at the Temple.
I know that many wonderful miracles take place in His holy house and this is certainly one experience I shall never forget.
