For my nineteenth birthday I got a tape recorder and a camera, two very important items for a missionary. I still had more than a month to go. Then finally a week to go. The highlight came when Mom and Dad took me to the temple for me to receive my endowments. In the Church there is no higher ordinance that a person can receive than the endowment. Unless you consider that being married in the temple is the highest ordanance. Actually, the sealing for time and eternity (or temple marriage) is a continuation of the endowment. Obviously I wasn’t going to do that yet. But being in the Salt Lake Temple, where I had always dreamed of getting married, was a special experience. And I was there with my Mother and Father. And I was able to participate in temple ordinances with them. When I passed into the celestial room for the first time, the room that signified being in the presence of Our Heavenly Father, Dad came up to me and said, “Welcome to the Celestial Kingdom!” Then I was asked to stand as proxy for a couple who had died years ago and were now to be sealed for eternity. The man performing the ordinance, the sealer, was made aware of me going on a mission in one week. He gave me some special instruction. “Temple marriage is the crowning ordinance of the temple. And when you get back from your mission, you’ll bring a lovely young lady to be your bride and I will perform your marriage.” At that time, I thought that was going to be Melanie. A few days later, I went with Melanie to a University of Utah Football game with her father and his new wife. I could tell the whole idea of her parents’ divorce was very hard on Melanie.
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