“They called me a pig.”

I don’t know why, but this past week I have been thinking about a telephone conversation I had with my brother, Dick, a few months ago. During our talk he told me that two of our (Mormon) missionaries came to his door. I asked how that went, and he said, “They called me a pig.”

Of course, that kind of surprised me, so I asked, “How did that happen?”

He said, “I asked these guys why I couldn’t go into one of your temples, and one of them said, ‘You’re not worthy.' I said, ‘How do you know I’m not worthy? You don’t know anything about me.’ He said a few other things about needing to be a member of your church, and I said I didn’t think that was a good answer, and then one of them said, “We don’t cast our pearls before swine.”

It seems kind of strange that a missionary would say that to someone, but now that I think about it, I can understand how it happened. Sometimes we forget that most of our missionaries are young men--19 to 25 years old, sometimes away from home for the first time in their lives. They do go through a training period at the Missionary Training Center, but they often do not have the experience to answer every question.

So I am suggesting that the Elder could have given my brother a better answer. A better answer would have been to say, “You can go into the temple. In fact, we want you and everybody else in the world to go into the temple. That is one of the reasons why 50,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are serving full-time missions—to prepare people to enter the House of the Lord.” It is also important to tell people that what goes on in the temple is not secret, but it is sacred, so, in order to enter the temple, one must be a member of the Church, and one must have a recommend that certifies that he or she is living in accordance with the laws that the Lord has revealed are necessary to live by in order to be worthy to receive and perform the ordinances that are available there.

I think it would be helpful to tell an interested non-member (or uniformed member) that three different ordinances are performed in the temple. The first is baptism for the dead. There are several passages in the New Testament that refer to this ordinance; the most oft-quoted is 1 Cor. 15:29. Another is 1 Peter 4:6. We believe baptism is essential to salvation and that in order to return to the presence of our Father in Heaven, one must be baptized. We know that there are many people that lived and died without ever having the opportunity to receive this ordinance; therefore, we go to the temple to serve as proxies so that we can be baptized in their behalf.

The second ordinance in the temple is called the Endowment. During this ordinance, we view a video presentation that tells us of the creation of the Earth and of the fall of Adam. As part of this ordinance, we make covenants with the Lord in which we promise to live our lives in accordance with His laws. He, in turn, promises that if we will keep our covenant, He will bless (or Endow) us with eternal life.

The third ordinance is the Sealing ordinance. In this ordinance, husbands and wives our sealed together and children are sealed to parents for time and eternity so that the family unit can continue, not only for this life, but for the next life also. As with baptism for the dead, once we have received the endowment and sealing ordinances for ourselves, we go to the temple to serve as proxies for others who died without having the opportunity to receive them for themselves.

For those who believe that serving as proxies for others is a strange idea, consider this: The Savior, even Jesus Christ, served as a proxy for all of us when He atoned for the sins of the world. Because we were unable to atone for our own sins, He took our place and suffered the pain and agony so that we could repent and be forgiven. And as He performed that task that we were unable to perform for ourselves, we, in turn, perform the work for those who have died without having the opportunity to perform the work for themselves.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spends millions of dollars building temples all over the world. We (the members) truly believe that each temple is a "House of the Lord." It has never been the intention of the Church to deny anyone the blessings that come from temple worship. To the contrary, we invite all who will listen to our message to take the steps necessary to join us in one of those holy buildings.

How Did He Know?

I have recently had a new insight. When you read the scriptural account of the creation of this world, it is interesting that the sequence of events described by Moses in the book of Genesis is the same sequence agreed upon by most scientists.

Think about it. First the elements were organized to form the planet. As the atmosphere began to clear from the chaos of the initial creation, "...God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen. 1:3). Next was the beginning of the water cycle: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so" (Gen. 1:6-7). Then the waters were gathered together in one place and the dry land appeared. At this point in time, there was light, water and dry earth, so the next step was the appearance of grass and herbs and other plants (see Gen. 1:11-12).

It is assumed by most scientists that before plant life appeared on the earth that the atmosphere was composed of high amounts of carbon dioxide and that the sky was probably somewhat translucent, allowing light in, but not providing a view of the rest of the universe. However, as the plants began to inhale the carbon dioxide and to exhale oxygen, the atmosphere began to become transparent, as it is now. It was at this time that: "God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good" (Gen. 1:14-18). You will notice that this passage does not state that God created the Sun and the Moon on the fourth day (they had been there all along), only that he made them to appear. Next came the creation of animal life, in the waters, in the air, and on the land. Then, finally, after everything else, the creation of Man (see Gen 1:20-27).

So here is Moses' account of the creation. In very simple terms, but in the exact sequence that modern scientists believe these things happened. So it begs the question: How did a man living thousands of years ago, with no modern technology come to this knowledge. We can only assume that someone who had this knowledge must have told him and the most logical explanation seems to be that the one who had this knowledge was the one who did the creating. Think about it.