Sealing Power

This last week I had the opportunity go attend the Draper temple open house with my girlfriend. She's not endowed yet, so it was really neat to be with her the first time that she saw the interior of the temple (other than a baptistery). These houses of the Lord in our day, modeled after those in days of old, are truly holy sanctums, and I know the ordinances performed therein bring us closer to our Father in Heaven and help us return to His presence.

After seeing the baptismal font, the dressing rooms (the bride's dressing room is so nice!), and the various rooms representing the degrees of glory, we finally ended in a sealing room. We sat in front of one of the mirrors on the wall, and we could see our reflections going back and forth forever—into eternity. There was an older couple in the room, and after a couple of other people came in and sat down, the couple closed the door and started talking to us about the various things we had seen in the temple and what this very special room was for.

This good brother cited the words of Christ to Peter in the New Testament about the power to seal on earth as well as in heaven: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt 16:19). We believe that these same priesthood keys have been restored in this dispensation through the Prophet Joseph Smith, and that in the Holy Temple families can be sealed together not just for this life, but for all of eternity. This is such a beautiful idea to me—but my words can't express it. I'll just end with the words of Parly P. Pratt on this topic:

"It was Joseph Smith who taught me how to prize the endearing relationships of father and mother, husband and wife; of brother and sister, son and daughter. It was from him that I learned that the wife of my bosom might be secured to me for time and all eternity; and that the refined sympathies and affections which endeared us to each other emanated from the fountain of divine eternal love. It was from him that I learned that we might cultivate these affections, and grow and increase in the same to all eternity; while the result of our endless union would be an offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, or the sands of the sea shore. … I had loved before, but I knew not why. But now I loved—with a pureness—an intensity of elevated, exalted feeling, which would lift my soul from the transitory things of this groveling sphere and expand it as the ocean. … In short, I could now love with the spirit and with the understanding also" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Ch. 42).