Happy Temple Anniversary to My Family!

Sunday, March 26, 2017—Happy Temple Anniversary to My Family!

Idaho Falls Temple (Idaho)

                Today is the Dean and Barbara Hammon Family Anniversary. When I was almost seven-years-old, our family went to the Idaho Falls Temple and were sealed for time and eternity. I remember parts of it as vividly as if it happened today.

                I remember arriving very early in the morning. We children—Dennis, Telecia, Darrel, Brad, Shawn, and Delaina—went to the Children’s Center where we waited for our parents. While there, we played a variety of games, including red light, green light. I must have been wearing red socks that day because one of the older boys who was playing with us called me “Red Socks.” I think we were way more noisy than we should have been.

The Hammon Family sans Delaina, Heber, and Jaralyn

            I believe the part that stuck out the most is dressing all in white and then being led to a room upstairs where my parents were kneeling across the altar from one another. The children gathered at the altar and placed our hands on top of our parents. I remember Uncle Milt and Aunt Stella, Uncle Wilford and Aunt Beth, Brother and Sister Heward, and others in the room. I remember my mother and father crying. I don’t really know exactly what happened that day although I knew we were being sealed together as a family.

The Hammon Family sans my mother

                Since that day, I have been back to the temple numerous times and performed sealings for those who have passed on and witnessed other sealings. My most vivid sealing was that of Joanne and my sealing and marriage to each other for all time and eternity. Surely, there couldn’t have been a happier day in the scheme of earthly things. While we were physically here on earth, we were in an eternal House of the Lord where eternal ordinances are performed.

Our engagement photo (by Dennis Hammon)

                I know my brothers and sisters—excluding Heber and Jaralyn as they hadn’t been born 

yet—remember that day. Perhaps, it is a bit fuzzy for Shawna and Delaina as they were five and two respectively, but I remember it. I knew I liked being in the temple and have since learned the why. I enjoy going now. Joanne and I were just in the Payson Temple (Utah) on Saturday morning (yesterday), enjoying the glorious moment being in the Celestial Room, discussing our own family and the things we need to do to maintain our sealing to them.

It is in the House of the Lord where we make eternal binding covenants with our Father in Heaven. We who have been to the temple; we who have knelt at the holy altars and made sacred “covenants and obligations relative to exaltation” (Packer, p. 162); we who have received our holy endowments; we who have basked in the glory of God within the walls of this holy shrine--surely the Lord is happy with us and our title: “Keepers of covenants.”

New Provo City Center Temple

Happy Anniversary to the Dean and Barbara Hammon Family. It is now up to us!