What happens in those temples?

A lot of people wonder what happens in our temples. If you haven’t seen them before, they’re beautiful, peaceful places.

What happens inside is pretty simple—we make special covenants with the Lord to follow Christ.

Here’s a short video that gives an overview.

More about covenants

A covenant is an agreement with some serious intent behind it.

In the agreements we make with the Lord, he’s basically saying, boy, have I got a deal for you! It’s the ultimate makeover program. I’m going to make more of your life here and now and in the future than you could ever imagine. It’s going to be meaningful and full of love and laughter and other terrific stuff you can’t get anywhere else. And I’m not going to charge you a cent for this. All you need to do is commit to trust me and do what I ask.

And we’re, all, oh man, that looks fabulous—where do we sign?

Except the Lord doesn’t have us sign our name on paper or shake hands on it. Signatures and handshakes are two common methods we use to symbolize our promise to keep our word in worldy contracts. But the Lord asks us to sign our name in a different way.

The way the Lord wants us to enter into his covenants is by participating in sacred rituals. These rituals symbolize what we’re going to do and what he’s going to do. It’s a memorable way of making a promise. Of course, we don’t know why he wants us to make promises with him in this way. We just know he’s asked us to.

As a side note, it’s important that the Lord gives the person performing the ordinance the authority to do so. And that the person performs the ritual in the way the Lord has prescribed. After all, the Lord is the one extending the opportunity, and it needs to be done the way he’s said it needs to be done by someone he has authorized to do it.

Let me give you an example of covenants we make outside of temples.

Example 1: baptismal covenant

We make our first covenant through full immersion baptism.

In this ritual, someone with authority fully immerses the person making the covenant in a body of water, then brings them out again. We can enter into this covenant when we’re of an age that we know what we’re doing. And people have done it in lakes, rivers, the sea, fonts in church houses—all sorts of places.

That ritual symbolizes our promise to give up the old guy that just wanted to do what he wanted to do. We’re going to bury him. And we’re going to be a different guy who trusts and follows Christ.

The ritual also symbolizes the Lord’s promise that if we do bury the old man, he will wash us clean through the power of the Holy Ghost, change us into a new person, and give us a new life. A fabulous life.

It’s also a symbol of that fact that death will not have a permanent hold on us. It won’t have a hold on anyone. We will all be resurrected.

So through baptism we, in essence, sign our name. And the Lord sign’s his.

Example 2: the Lord’s supper

Another covenant we make outside the temple is eating the Lord’s supper—the broken bread and wine (except we use water).

The broken bread and water symbolize Christ’s sacrifice for us.

When we partake of the bread and water, we promise to remember the sacrifice Christ made for us and to pattern our life after his, to make trusting and following him as much a part of us as the water we drink and the food we eat.

And the Lord promises that if we do, he will change us from the inside. He will nourish us in our new path. He will give us a life unlike any other.

Again, by performing this ritual we, in essence, sign our name. We make a promise to the Lord. And he makes a promise to us.

Temple covenants

In the temples we make three additional covenants by participating in three other symbolic rituals.

One of those rituals is marriage. In that ritual we covenant with God we’ll follow Christ and work together as husband and wife in the way He’s prescribed. He promises our marriage will last forever, and, through his grace, it will become more glorious than we could imagine.

The second ritual is a symbolic cleansing and blessing. In it the Lord promises blessings.

The final ritual symbolizes how we let God change us. He gives us instructions. We exercise faith and follow them. He gives us more. We exercise faith and follow these additional instructions. Back and forth it goes. It’s a multi-step process symbolizing how we grow with the Lord, line upon line, him changing us bit by bit, until we can enter his presence.

Get back up each time you fall

The Lord doesn’t expect us to be perfect in the promises we make. He knows we can’t be perfect. That’s why Christ made an atonement. What he expects is that we keep trying, we keep getting up each time we fall, and we allow him to change us bit by bit.

Like everyone else, sometimes we measure up to our good intentions, and sometimes, alas, we stumble and stray. But the Lord is patient and willing to help us if we’re willing to let him.

Covenants for those who died without the chance to make them

Every day, thousands of people all over world die without ever hearing about Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father’s plan. What happens to these folks?

We believe that the spirits of all of us continue to live here on earth after we die. We don’t go to God or heaven or hell just yet. During that time, all those who didn’t hear about Christ during their mortal lives will have the opportunity to hear about him from the church that’s organized in the world of spirits. And they’ll have the chance to accept or reject the message.

We believe, the Lord wants to give all his blessings to all of his children, whether they hear about it in this life or the next. However, for some reason unknown to us, they can’t perform the rituals as spirits. So we believe the Lord has asked us to perform these rituals on behalf of those that have passed on.

If those in the spirit world want to accept the rituals performed on their behalf, they can. If they don’t want to, they don’t have to. It’s totally up to them.

We believe this practice is what Paul was referring to when he explains that all will be resurrected because of Christ and then says, in essence, if we aren’t going to be resurrected, then why do we baptize ourselves on behalf of those who have died?

Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:29)

Helping the people who have died but haven’t heard about Christ is the reason Latter-day Saints do so much genealogy work—we want to make sure our ancestors are good to go should they decide to follow Christ.

For me and other Latter-day Saints, we believe that the Lord wants good things for all his children and is going to do all he can to help them enjoy the gifts he wants to give them. And temples are a wonderful part of that.