Temple Covenants

Note from Mom

    Because I love you guys as much as I do, the most reassuring fact I know is that your father and I were sealed in the temple for time and all eternity.  Because we were sealed, you were born into this marriage covenant.  We are told that because you are born in that covenant, you will be our children through all eternity.  I know of no sweeter blessing.  You know the book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch?  In it this refrain is sung several times, “I’ll love you forever.  I’ll like you for always.  As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”  As beautiful as this sentiment is, the covenants that your father and I have made allow this to go much farther.  *I* can say, “I’ll love you forever.  I’ll like you for always.  Far into the eternities, my baby you’ll be.”

"Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."
(Proclamation on the Family)

Object Lesson:
"Using a Ziploc bag, fill it with little people toys or things to represent the family.  Don’t zip it up.  Turn it upside down and show what happens to our family when we are not sealed.  Then show how we stay together when the bag is sealed."
(Thanks "Connie's File Cabinet")

Learn About Temples:
from Mormon.org 
-or-
from the Church's publication "Temples"

Activity for Young Children
Give each child a strip of paper.  Have them write their name on it and decorate it to represent themselves.  Then staple together to create a chain and talk about how the temple unites us together eternally.

Quotes:
"The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours—long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them. They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, [but] God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability. Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend."  
~ Orson F. Whitney
(as quoted in October 1987 General Conference by Vaughn J. Featherstone)