Temple Mirrors of Eternity: A Testimony of Family

Eternal perspective helps us better recognize our position through generations.

His oriental genealogy is well recorded back 35 generations – that changes family history work.

…each new convert, young single adult, those returning to Church activity, and others bless generations when they become fellow Saints in the household of God.

Today, speaking of electronic handheld devices, I tell young friends, “Blackberries read in Church make green bishops blue.”

I found myself looking with this beautiful couple into the temple mirrors – one mirror on this side, one mirror on that side. Together the temple mirrors reflect back and forth images that stretch seemingly into eternity.

I then imagined not only a succession of generations but also a succession of family relationships. In one direction I saw myself as son, grandson, great-grandson, back to First Dragon Gong. In the mirrors in the other direction, I saw myself as father, grandfather, great-grandfather. I could see my wife, Susan, as daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter and, in the other direction, as mother, grandmother, great-grandmother.

In temple mirrors of eternity, I began to understand my wife and myself as children of our parents and parents to our children, as grandchildren of our grandparents and grandparents to our grandchildren. Mortality’s great lessons distill upon our souls as we learn and teach in eternal roles, including child and parent, parent and child.

The world pursues enlightened self-interest. Yet the power is not in us to save ourselves. But it is in Him. Infinite and eternal,10 only our Savior’s Atonement transcends time and space to swallow up death, anger, bitterness, unfairness, loneliness, and heartbreak.

A miracle of the images we discern in temple mirrors of eternity is that they – we – can change. When Jean and Walter Gong entered the new and everlasting covenant, they opened the way for ancestors (such as First Dragon Gong) to be sealed and for posterity to be born in the covenant. Please remember: as we reach out to each sister or brother, we bless generations.