1,113 Couples, but How Many Marriages?

“To enter into eternal life we must accept and enter into the covenant of the holy priesthood. We must receive our endowments in the holy temples of God. We must enter into the covenant of eternal marriage in that holy place.

I have seen so many couples who come into the Salt Lake Temple for marriage, coming in groups, day after day. In one month alone, the month of August 1973, we had 1,113 couples come to that temple to receive this sacred ordinance, which is required for eternal life.

As I performed some of these marriages, I said to these couples, “We can give you the ordinance, but we can’t give you eternal marriage. That is your decision; that is your job. That you must earn. You must endure in righteousness to the end. You have nothing made by simply coming here. Nothing is ever made that you do not make yourself. You will have to continue in righteousness, to the end of your lives, living ‘by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.’” (D&C 84:44.)

President John K. Edmunds, Salt Lake Temple
Brigham Young University devotional address, February 26, 1974