The Blessings of Keeping Temple Covenants

By Tarirai Musonza Mhonda

Area Organisation Advisor, Africa South Area

Keeping the temple covenants places us on the heavenly path and gives us the constant companion of the Holy Spirit.

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, it was welcoming and very peaceful. I felt an urge 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 made there. 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 from the heart in His name, feasting on His word, turning to Him to repent of our sins,”¹ 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 will 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 Johannesburg South Africa Temple in our living room to always remind us of the importance of keeping temple covenants.

Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve (1932–2017) said, “The primary purpose of the temple 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 of Jesus Christ.”²

President Russell M. Nelson 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.”³

President Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) 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 perspective helps us to maintain fidelity to covenants made. He emphasized that “ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into His presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.”⁴

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.