Temple Garments and the Sacrament

     Here is some recent instruction from President Nelson on our temple garments and their worshipfulness:

        Wherever your personal ‘closet’ may be…plan to have a period of private time in that setting to prepare, to ponder, and to pray.
        Prior to doing so, you will have clothed yourself with the garment of the holy priesthood. This may seem little more than a routine step in preparing for the day.  However, as you clothe yourself in this holy garment please think about the temple.  Specifically, I invite you to reflect upon those moments when you stand at the veil of the temple.
        I want you to know what the Apostle Paul taught about the veil of the temple [in Hebrews, chapter 10, starting at verse 19].  Your garment is symbolic of the veil (of the temple); the veil is symbolic of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you put on your garment, you may feel that you are truly putting upon yourself the very sacred symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ — His life, His ministry and His mission, which was to atone for every daughter and son of God.
        Each day when you clothe yourself once again with the holy garment, you may ponder about all he has done for you and for all people who would ever live. You may also reflect upon the great privileges that come to those who learn how to draw upon the powers of heaven.
        Our garments are a shield and protection for us both physically and spiritually. They protect us from the fiery darts of the adversary, which may be aimed at us and our loved ones during the day. And, very simply, wearing the garment faithfully and respectfully gives us greater access to the mercy, protection, strength and power of our Savior Jesus Christ.  (https://www.thechurchnews.com/2022/6/28/23218768/president-nelson-sacrament-meeting-for-new-mission-leaders-time-with-the-lord)

    The wearing of our temple garments is sacramental.  The garment contain reminders of Christ and his sacrifice for us.  Likewise, it serves to help us remember our commitment to eternal temple covenants.  This is especially true in our emulating and acquiring the virtues and characteristics of our Savior, Jesus Christ, so that we might live with him again in the Celestial Kingdom (endowment).  Also in being faithful to and strengthening the bonds of our eternal relationships with the persons in this life that we love the very most– our spouses, our children, and other family members (sealings).  Additionally, wearing the temple garments promises to help us claim life-long protection against temptations and the powers of evil.
    Here is a comparison of the promises and blessings as we partake of the sacramental emblems and as we wear and honor our temple garments:
1. SACRAMENT:
       PROMISES MADE:
    To always remember Christ and His atoning sacrifice
    To take upon oneself Christ’s name (to be His disciple and spiritual child)
    To keep His commandments
      PROMISES RECEIVED: To always have the Spirit with us
      WHEN TO REMEMBER: Particularly at sacrament meeting, but remember always
2. WEARING TEMPLE GARMENTS:
      PROMISES MADE:
    To wear the garment throughout one’s life
    To always remember Christ and His atoning sacrifice, and His ultimate position in this life
    To keep God’s commandments, to recognize one’s need for constant spiritual nourishment
    To be faithful to one’s temple covenants (becoming like Christ, sealing to loved ones)
      PROMISES RECEIVED: Life-long protection from the power of Satan
      WHEN TO REMEMBER: Particularly after a period of personal reflection and prayer, while dressing each day, while putting on clean garments (also, be respectful, don’t stand on dirty garment or leave on floor), but remember always.

Ministering to the Ministers

     Just as the process of ministering starts with making regular (ideally monthly or even more often) contacts and visits with assigned persons or families, so also ministering to the ministers absolutely requires regular accountability contacts.  The Church Handbook says “at least quarterly” for a formal accountability meeting, but perhaps contacts happening more often, such as a monthly phone call.
        “Anything new about your families/sisters that I need to know?”
        “What has happened with _______ issue or problem?”
        “How are you feeling about your relationship with them?”
        “Have you visited them recently/over the past month?”
    As an aside, it might be helpful if brothers and sisters with ministering assignments in a ward might be expected to be the first line of defense, the primary persons who are expected to provide ministering efforts to members with needs.  We have a tradition of wonderful bishops, relief society presidents, and priesthood leaders who reach out to help ward members.  But in the promotion of all ward members to become strong in ministering, it might be wise when a ministering leader hears of a new problem in the life of a member, to resist making a contact themselves, but rather to start by calling their assigned ministering person and suggesting that they follow up and report back with what they have learned.  It might be discouraging and almost embarrassing to learn from a Church leader the details of problems being experienced on the part of someone to whom they are assigned be the Church to be the minister.  These kinds of problems may be the very opportunity that a person needs to master the ministering process and to build ministering relationships.
    Just as Church families might often interpret the failure of an assigned minister to make visits as evidence that the person does not care for them, so also the failure of a leader to schedule and conduct quality accountability interviews at least quarterly might well be also interpreted negatively.  Either the leader does not care for the assigned minister or else he or she does not care for how the ministering program is being carried out, that effective ministering is not important.
    Based upon my experiences, I believe that quality ministering accountability interviews should be:
    1) Held regularly, no less often that quarterly.  This could be at the church, at the leader’s home, or the minister’s home
    2) Scheduled by a secretarial person
    3) Planned for at least 15-20 minutes
    4) Opened and closed with prayer
    5) Leader takes notes, copy could be shared
    6) Focus on needs of family/persons, ministering goals, strengthening the ministering relationship, the companionship, the ability of the ministers to serve this family/sister.
    Overall, making ministering assignments is only the beginning of overseeing ministering.  The goal is create effective, committed, and loving ministers and to bless every family/sister in the ward.

President Richard Barker’s System for High Quality Home Teaching
(Robert Lewis, written in 2019)
    We moved to a new home in Taylorsville, Utah in 1969, and three weeks later I was called as Elders President in our new ward.  I discovered that the Stake President, Richard Barker, had a very serious and elaborate strategy for generating high quality home teaching in his stake.  We had over 100 families assigned to our quorum.  Under this program, we achieved nearly 100% of families visited each month and I believe had a relatively high level of quality ministering relationships and ward unity.  
    In President Barker’s vision, he established a role division between stake and ward leadership.  Stake leaders would be concerned about making sure that all families were visited regularly (as per D&C 20:47/51).  Ward leaders were to be concerned about meeting the specific needs of persons and families (see Moroni 6:4).  Here are details:
    1) Home teachers averaged about four families each.  In the quorum presidency, we divided the supervision of about 30 home teaching pairs into three districts of about 10 each.
    2) The stake took most of the responsibility for overseeing that all home visits were made.
    a) Every weekend of the month, at about 9 pm on Saturday, I received a call from the High Councilor assigned to our ward, in which I was expected to report on which families assigned to my quorum had already been visited.  He had a current copy of a list of all our families and checked off the ones I reported.  In order to make that report, I and my counselors needed to have made contact, probably earlier in the day or week, with all the senior home teachers we supervised to get information about the status of their visits to their families.
    b) Early on Sunday morning there was a meeting in which these High Counselors reported the month’s home visit progress to President Barker.
    c) This process continued weekly until the full month’s visit report was made.
    d) The stake goal was 100% of families visited.  Occasionally, our Quorum Presidency made these visits as a back up.
    3) Members of our Quorum Presidency were expected to conduct an accountability interview with each Home Teaching pair or senior companion monthly.
    a) We generally did these on about the second Sunday, before or after Church, at the churchhouse.
    b) Our quorum secretary arranged the appointments.
    c) We allocated about 15 minutes time for each interview.
    d) Contents of the interview included prayer, discussion of needs of the families, and  identifying goals for work with each family and actions the home teachers planned to take to reach these goals.
    e) We had a small pre-carboned form that the member of the presidency used to take notes on needs, goals and action plans, and shared a copy with the home teachers.
    f) Follow-up meetings, of course, included discussion of progress on goals and plans.
    g) The stake required a report at the end of each month on accountability interviews conducted and expected 100% compliance.
    4) Our Quorum Presidency met monthly with the Bishopric to discuss the needs of our families and the strategies for filling these needs, with an emphasis on the quality of the visiting and ministering to our families.
    a) This meeting was usually held mid-month.
    b) It would typically last at least an hour.
    c) It was separate from administrative meetings such as ward council.
    5) We were instructed and tried to minimize failure by home teachers.  We recognized that some home teachers had capabilities and limits different than others, and would not be as successful with so many families.  “It looks like in your situation right now having only two assigned families will work best.”  We also recognized that almost every family knew the expectation of at least a monthly visit by their home teachers, and possibly would interpret the lack of visits as not caring, making a ministering relationship more difficult to achieve.   Therefore we did not allow the lack of visiting of a family to continue more than a couple of months, but would reassign these families and give different home teachers a fresh start for building the desired rapport with their assigned families.
    6) I found the atmosphere for working with home teachers under this arrangement comfortable and satisfying.  We were able to counsel home teachers and see them grow.  It seemed to help create a climate in the ward that was positive and supportive.
    I wonder if we might learn something about how to successfully implement the new ministering effort from President Barker's program?

Our Wonderful Bodies Testify of God, from President Nelson

    It was the study of medicine that convinced me that God was real. The more I learned about the human body, the more I realized that only  a Divine Being could have created something so magnificent...
    As scientists, we do not know how two cells unite to form an embryo or how primitive cells differentiate to become a beating heart or a thinking brain.  We just know that they do so according to a pattern established by our Heavenly Father.
    For example, consider the jewel that is the human heart–a compression pump so remarkable that its power and durability is almost beyond comprehension.  This tremendous organ pumps enough fluid every day to fill the equivalent of a 2,000-gallon railroad tank-car.  Your heat has four tiny valves that open and close 100,000 times a day, over 36 million times a year, without any effort on your part.
    These valves are soft and billowy as a parachute, yet as tough as sinew.  Unless altered by disease, heart valve are so rugged that they can stand this wear and tear for decades.  No man-made material developed this far can be flexed so frequently and for so long without breaking or wearing out.
    One of the biggest problems researchers working to develop the first artificial hearts encountered was to find a material that could be folded and unfolded many times a day, day after day, without ultimate fatigue and fracture.  The heart does enough mechanical work to life a 150-pound person from the street up to the top of the empire State Building every day.  Yet in so doing, it consumes minute amounts of energy.
    At the crest of the heart is an electrical transmitting center that send signals down specific special circuits that cause the muscle fibers to contract together with a synchronized response that would be the envy of any conductor of a symphony orchestra.
    The first artificial heart-lung machine we made occupied many square feet of space.  The pump that our Creator made occupies a space about the size of your fist and does not need to be plugged into an electrical outlet.  The power to our heart is provided, not by battery or cord, nor by compressed air or be nuclear energy, but by a process known only to God.
    Consider other properties of the body.  The human brain with its countless combinations of recording, memory, storage, and retrieval systems serves as the headquarters for one’s personality, character, and knowledge.  The brain’s capacity appears to be unlimited.  The more it si stimulated and challenged, the more it seems able to do.  The more we memorize music, equations, data, poetry, scriptures, and famous sayings, the more our capacity for memorizing and retaining information increases.
    What about our eyes?  I remember the day when I heard about a new camera that could autoregulate light and shutter speed settings.  At that time, that advancement in technology seemed remarkable.  Then I stood in front of a mirror, flashed a beam into my eye, and observed a brisk constriction of a perfectly round pupil.  My eye responded instantly to regulate the intensity of light that could pass through a self-focusing lens to reach the sensitive retina in the back of the eye.  We each own two “cameras,” if you will, and when they function properly, they are finer than any camera that you can buy.
    Then consider the body’s remarkable ability to reproduce.  Twenty-three chromosomes from both the father and the mother unite to make one cell.  These chromosomes contain thousands of genes.  A mavelous process of genetic coding is established by which all of the basic human characteristics of the unborn child are determined, and thus a new DNA complex is formed.  Approximately twenty-two days after these two germ cells unite, a little heart begins to beat.  At twenty-six days, the circulation of blood begins.  Cells multiply and divide, some being differentiated to become eyes that see or ears that hear, while still others are destined to become fingers, toes and legs.  The ability of the body to reproduce is magnificent and begins with conception.
    The body also has the ability to protect itself from disease.  I’ll never forget watching some children drinking water that ran down the sidewalk in front of our home.  The water carried mud from a neighbor’s garden.  I suppose the number of germs they ingested was incalculable, but not one child became ill.  The defense mechanisms of their bodies protected them.
    I could go on and on.  We could discuss the bodies capacity to autoregulate on an almost infinite number of variables, beginning with temperature.  We could explore the skin, which protects us against both extreme heat and cold, the ears, bones, adrenal glands, kidneys, lungs, and so on.
    Perhaps most remarkably, the body has the power to heal.  Broken bones heal.  Wounds heal.  Incisions and lacerations heal.  A leak in the respiratory system will heal itself, whereas circulation systems outside the body do not have this power...
    Our mortal bodies are literally gifts from God.  
(Russell M.Nelson, “Heart of the Matter,” 128-131, Deseret Book, 2023)