As a Church member, I had always wished to go to the temple and do the ordinances required of me. When I got the opportunity in 2018, I was so happy to go to the temple with my family. When I got to the temple the place was welcoming and very peaceful. I felt the urge to want to stay there indefinitely. I could feel the holiness and sacredness of the place and the presence of the Spirit.
So many questions rushed into my mind. I felt going to the temple is not the end but the beginning. The beginning in that I have to keep all the covenants that I entered into at the temple. As Elder Kim B. Clark of the Seventy said “When we live our covenants, they influence everything we say and do. We live a covenant life full of simple, everyday acts of faith that focus us on Jesus Christ; prayer of the heart in His name, feasting on His word, turning to him to repent of our sins,” and obeying to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Keeping the temple covenants places one on the Heavenly path and gives us the constant companion of the Holy Spirit. What a great gift. I know that keeping the covenants is the only way to thank Heavenly Father for the life and the family that he has blessed me with and that one day I would be able to go back to Him. I felt that as a family we need to keep and remind each other of the covenants we are equipped with at the temple. I even decided to keep a picture of the Johannesburg temple in our living room to always remind us of the importance of keeping temple covenants.
President Russell M Nelson said, 'The primary purpose of the temples is to provide the ordinances necessary for our exaltation in the celestial kingdom”. Temple ordinances guide us to our Savior and give us the blessings which come to us through the Atonement. He also said that “temple ordinances, covenants, endowments, and sealings enable individuals to be reconciled with the Lord and families to be sealed beyond the veil of death. Obedience to temple covenants qualifies us for eternal life, the greatest gift of God to man. Eternal life is more than immortality. Eternal life is exaltation in the highest heaven — the kind of life that God lives.”
President Boyd K. Packer highlighted that temple covenants made with God are not restrictive, but protective. They elevate us beyond the limits of our own power and perspective. Such a perspective helps us to maintain fidelity to covenants made. He emphasized that 'ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into [God's] presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.'
I know that in keeping the covenants, I am preparing myself to go back to Heavenly Father for eternity and that He finds joy in me when I keep my covenants.