Recently, I went to the Seattle Washington Temple with a sweet friend named Emma. We spent four hours together, participating in sacred ordinances. At the end of our day, I felt such a closeness with her that, while walking down the hallway outside of the sealing rooms, I reached out my hand as if to take hers.
But the thing is, Emma died over a hundred years ago.
I was first introduced to Emma thanks to the “Ordinances Ready” feature on FamilySearch. She needed her baptism, confirmation, initiatory, endowment, and sealing ordinances. I decided to do something I’d never done before: complete every ordinance on her behalf in one temple visit.
Sharing the Covenant Path
When I first arrived at the temple, I went downstairs to the baptistry. I hadn’t done a proxy baptism since I was a youth and was surprisingly nervous. But, as I stepped down into the warm font and heard Emma’s name in the ordinance, a calmness came over me. As hands were laid on my head for her confirmation, the calmness turned into warmth.
Then, I made my way upstairs and changed into my white temple dress. As I received the ordinances of the initiatory for her, I listened closely to the promises and power she was given.
During the endowment, I held her card in my pocket and pulled it out once in a while to look at her name. Emma. I wondered what her life was like. Had she been married? Was she a mother? Did she have health issues? When did she die?
I prayed to know if she had accepted my offering that day. I even prayed that I would feel her there if she was with me.
Connecting with my Cousin
After the endowment session, I knelt at an altar in a sealing room in Emma’s place as she was sealed to her parents. It was then that I felt her there. She was no longer a name on a card but a person, a woman, a relative—someone who loved me and someone I had grown to love over the previous four hours.
After the sealing, I walked slowly down the hallway, allowing the time and space to be present with Emma.
I smiled and reached out as if to take her hand as we walked together in the temple, me on one side of the thinnest of veils, her on the other.
I didn’t feel her take my hand, but I didn’t need to. She was there, right beside me.
Coming to Christ Together
That day with Emma in the temple changed me.
I have been to the temple with countless ancestors over the years, and every time feels different. Sometimes, I’m so distracted by my own life that I can only feel my own pain. Other times, I’ve come focused on answers or the lives of my loved ones. And sometimes, I don’t feel anything; I just go because I know I should.
But now, I am different. Transformed.
I understand more deeply now that these are not “names” we “take” to the temple but people we come to the temple to be with. We go not just to spend time together but to help save each other through our worship together.
More articles for you:
▶ ‘Sistering’ in the temple locker room
▶ How striving for a temple recommend saved a heroin addict’s life
▶ The initiatory ordinance is beautifully relevant to daily life—here’s how
