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Elder Yamashita Invites Church Members to Always Hold a Temple Recommend
Encourages faithful discipleship and temple worship, when possible.
“Keep holding a temple recommend,” says Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita of the Seventy.
“Are you ready to go to the temple when restrictions, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ease?” he asks. “Has your temple recommend expired?”
“My dear brothers and sisters, we need to always hold a current temple recommend, even at this unique time when many temples are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Holding a current temple recommend is one of the ways we can show our love to the Lord. It is one way that we follow the great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’ (Matthew 22:37).
“We can show our worthiness to the Lord through holding a current temple recommend. Knowing that we are worthy to enter the temple brings a feeling of joy and peace. Holding a current temple recommend is an irreplaceable and important thing for each of us.
“If your temple recommend has expired, call your bishopric right away for a temple recommend interview. Keep holding a current temple recommend. Since I received my own endowment at the Tokyo Temple in Japan, I have continuously kept a current temple recommend. It is a great blessing and gift from God.
“Husbands and fathers, please make plans to take your wives and children to the temple.
“If you do not have a current temple recommend, start to prepare now. Please go to your bishop and he will help you. Let us go to the house of the Lord together.
“The Lord encourages us to increase our faith. To each one of us he says: ‘Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house . . . of God’ (D&C 88:119). He gives us the reasons to build a house of God and tells us how to prepare ourselves to be instructed in the temple.
“Let us prepare spiritually, mentally, and physically to be instructed in the temple” (see D&C 88:119–126).
“Remember, the first step is holding a current temple recommend.”
Many Latter-day Saints across the Pacific Area faithfully hold a temple recommend. Their circumstances are different, but they all have faith in our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
Two members of the Church, one from New Zealand and one from Samoa, share their thoughts about the blessings of having a temple recommend.
Melanie Riwai-Couch, New Zealand: “Having a temple recommend is a small but significant reminder of the covenants I have made, of my desire to keep the commandments and to have an unbroken chain with my children and family.”
Aleni Fuatimau, Samoa: “The temple recommend is like a key for me to open the doors of the temple to enter and participate in the most sacred ordinances administered there. Holding a current temple recommend reminds me of those covenants I made with Heavenly Father and a reminder for me to stay worthy of the priesthood which the Lord has given me.”