Families Will Be Together Forever!

I have been serving a mission for a little over 22 months now. It is all starting to come to a close for me. There are a lot of mixed emotions involved. At times I want to stay out here forever doing this great work. At other times I just want to go home and spend time with family and friends. But I know that I am truly doing God's work out here in preparing families to be together forever. Over the past 22 months I have met a lot of great people out here. Over a year ago I met a great family that began to recognize that the message we share is true. They took the steps to be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. As they continued on their path they began to receive more light and knowledge from God and grow closer to him. Just this last Saturday (April 23) I was blessed with the opportunity to go the temple with them. In the temple they took a great step in coming closer to God. They were sealed as husband and wife for all eternity. Then their two boys came in and they were all sealed as a family for this life and in the life to come. It was such a great experience. The spirit of God was way strong in the room. It helped me to strengthen my testimony that God truly does want us to be with our families for ever. One of my favorite moments was just seeing the joy in their eyes as they took this step to be bound together forever. The best was when the man doing the sealing was explaining to the boys that he was going to seal them as a family forever. Then their oldest son who has some special needs gave the man a thumb up and said, "thank you." It was a very touching moment when this sweet kid realized how great of an event that was taking place in the lives of his family. I know that that family will be together forever as long as they continue to live as Jesus Christ taught us to. I know it will be a great reunion for them all in the life to come.

Families are a great blessing to us. God has given us our families so that we could learn from one another and grow closer to Him. As we focus on the teachings of Jesus Christ as a family we will grow close together than ever before. A family is a wonderful gift from God. I know that God loves us and every good thing comes from him (Moroni 7 verses 12-17). I know that since God loves us he isn't going to give us a gift and take it away. God wants us to be with our families. He has allowed us this time to grow together and build great relationships. God wouldn't just take that way from us or remove those great times from our memories. I know that our families can be together forever. For this to happen we have to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. We have to take the proper steps such as being baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority of God, receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and go to the temple, which is God's house her on earth, and be sealed to our families for all eternity. I know that God has created a perfect plan for us all but it is up to us to follow the spirit and live as Christ taught us to.

For more on families check these out; “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, http://mormon.org/family/, http://mormon.org/faq/#Family|question=/faq/mormon-families/ , http://mormon.org/faq/#Marriage , Hymn 300: Families Can Be Together Forever

For other information check out; http://mormon.org/faq/#Priesthood, http://mormon.org/faq/#Restoration, http://mormon.org/restoration/,