Elder Benjamin De Hoyos of the Seventy spoke in a Saturday session of April 2023 general conference, sharing:
The Work and Purpose of Temples
That experience has permitted me to appreciate much better how, after three years of hard work and great sacrifice, the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, finally completed their beautiful temple in the spring of 1836—the first in this dispensation. In March of that same year, over a thousand people gathered in the temple and at its entrances for the dedicatory service. The Prophet Joseph Smith arose to offer the dedicatory prayer, which he had received by revelation (see Doctrine and Covenants 109). In it he described many of the extraordinary blessings that are bestowed upon those who worthily enter the temples of the Lord. Then the choir sang the hymn “The Spirit of God,” and the congregation stood and gave the Hosanna Shout “with such [force that it] seemed … to raise the roof from the building” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 307).
One week later the Prophet described the appearance of the Lord in the temple, who said:
“For behold, I have accepted this house, and my name shall be here; and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house. …
“And the fame of this house shall spread to foreign lands; and this is the beginning of the blessing which shall be poured out upon the heads of my people” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:7, 10).
After this and other visions, Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, appeared before the Prophet Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and said:
“Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi—testifying that he [Elijah] [the prophet] should be sent, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come—
“To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse—
“Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands; and by this ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near, even at the doors” (Doctrine and Covenants 110:14–16).
The Temple and Family History
After the Lord restored the sealing keys to Joseph Smith, the work of salvation on both sides of the veil began in our dispensation (see 1 Corinthians 15:22, 29; Doctrine and Covenants 128:8–18).
President Boyd K. Packer taught that “this signal event went unheeded by the world, but it would influence the destiny of every soul who has ever lived or will live. Things began quietly to happen. The Church became a temple-building church.
“In the world there emerged here and there, in a way thought to be spontaneous, people and organizations and societies interested in tracing genealogies. This has all taken place since the appearance of Elijah in the Kirtland Temple” (The Holy Temple [1980], 141).
“From that very day, April 3, 1836, the hearts of the children began to turn to their fathers. Thereafter ordinances were not tentative, but permanent. The sealing power was with us. No authorization transcends it in value. That power gives substance and eternal permanence to all ordinances performed with proper authority for both the living and the dead” (Preparing to Enter the Holy Temple [2002], 28).
Dear brothers and sisters, the construction and proper use of temples has been in any dispensation a sign of the true Church of Jesus Christ. ~For Elder Benjamin De Hoyos complete talk, click. . . . The Work of the Temple and Family History—One and the Same Work.
