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The Great Things in Life Never Come Easily
On 25 December 2010, my family and I were baptized. Everything looked different in our view. I was 12 years old; I was not able to understand much about the Church. As the days passed, I was able to understand the gospel better. I slowly started to learn about the importance of attending the temple. In a family home evening, we invited the missionaries to join us and to teach us. They taught us about how the temples on the earth help members to worship our Heavenly Father, to make and keep covenants and to perform ordinances for our ancestors. These teachings humbled us to be grateful and thankful to God for blessing us with temples on earth. After learning much about the temple, I and my family had a strong desire to go to the temple but because of some challenges in our family it took several years to prepare for the temple. Finally, the day came for me and my family to go to the temple in Hong Kong. It was 1 October 2017 and we were well prepared with family history work and with enthusiasm and with great joy in our hearts we were all set to enter into the house of the Lord.
As we started our journey from India to Hong Kong, our excitement to attend the temple increased. Our flight landed in the Hong Kong International Airport. We were standing in the line for immigration. An immigration officer took us to a different room and asked us lot of questions. Along with my family, there were five others with us from my home branch. My brother and I tried our best to help him understand that we were going to leave Hong Kong after a week. As proof we showed our return tickets, but he was not convinced. The immigration officer made the decision to send us all back to our country. We were devastated. Our excitement and joy turned into sorrow. My mom cried a lot. With great pain, we all returned to our country. Our ordeal continued in India. The Indian immigration authorities also questioned us as why we were sent back. It was with great difficult we were allowed to go. It was not easy to go through this situation, but we stayed faithful hoping that Heavenly Father would show his mercy on us to get into His house and receive His blessings for us.
A couple of weeks later, our branch was visited by a beloved member of our stake presidency. He gave a talk in the sacrament meeting and invited everyone to remain faithful in their trials and to prepare for the temple. He asked all the members to pray for us to go to the temple again. His talk was comforting to our wounded hearts and gave us hope that one day we will be able to attend the temple.
One day I was reading a talk given president Henry B. Eyring on “Try, Try, Try”.1 I learnt from his talk that great things never come easily. When I was reading his talk, the Spirit of the Lord confirmed it to me that I should keep trying because attending the temple is one of the greatest blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in this dispensation.
My family and I never gave up our desire to go to the house of the Lord. With the help of our loving church leaders, the prayers of the members of our branch and many others who helped us, once again we got the opportunity to go to the temple. We were blessed to go to the Taipei, Taiwan Temple. This time, we did not have any problems in passing the immigration. In the Taiwan airport, we were expecting the officers to ask us questions. But miraculously, they didn’t even ask us a single question. They just let us go. It brought great joy to us.
On 1 February 2018 we entered the temple. We had great experiences in the temple, there are no words to describe those feelings. My family was extremely happy after attending the temple. Our family did sealings, baptism for our ancestors and other ordinances.
While I was in the temple in Taiwan, I was thinking about our temple trip to Hong Kong and the story of Jonah and the whale came to my mind and helped me understand that we were meant to be sealed as a family in Taiwan temple not in Hong Kong.
My dear brothers and sisters we may face lot of challenges on our progress towards eternal life but it is after the trial of our faith that we receive witness as it is mentioned in Book of Mormon in Ether 12:6: “For ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.” We might have lot of works to do but don’t postpone visiting the temple. As you make attending the temple a priority, you will receive many blessings which our Heavenly Father has stored for us. I have received so many blessings personally. I testify that when we have true desire to go to the temple nothing can stop us2. And I promise you that when you attend the temple, you will literally feel the love that our Heavenly Father and the Saviour have for us.