As Mormons, it is our sacred responsibility to share the gospel with all of our “heart, might, mind, and strength.” Not only does it help bring those around us the Gospel of the Jesus Christ but it also inspires us and strengthens our own personal testimonies of the Church. Often we feel too overwhelmed with our personal lives to find time to do missionary work and seek out those looking for the Church, but with the Mormon Testimonies, it has never been so easy.

Mormontestimonies.org is a website that aims at compiling written and video testimonies from members worldwide. This site is viewed by investigators of the Church, as they seek more information and support. Your individual experience, story, or conversion to the Church could greatly impact an investigator. Taking the few minutes to write about how the Mormon Church has inspired your life can have a great impact. You will also be able to view other people’s testimonies, under the “Browse Testimonies” link. Testimonies will be classified by geography, generation, by name, and stakes and wards. The process of submitting your testimony is easy. Simply go to the Mormon Testimonies website and under “Quick Start,” type your name (or pseudonym if you would like to remain anonymous) and start writing!

This is an extremely effective yet easy way for Mormons to share their testimonies. So much information, both positive and negative about the church, is communicated through the internet now, and this is a wonderful way for Mormons to combat negative information on the web about the church. Your words have the potential to touch and inspire those looking for the truth.

Mormon temple marriage

In Mormon temples, we marry for eternity. We also make covenants to God that we will obey him for eternity. Marriage relationships compare easily to our relationships with God. In a marriage, love cannot thrive where there is no work. Married couples need to serve each other, do things together, work hard for the good of their family, and spend time in working to understand each other. Marriage relationships need to be nourished from the inside by unselfishness and willingness to listen to the other partner. Marriages do not survive without our watchful care.

Temple covenants with God need care, like a temple marriage

Just like some newlywed couples, we sometimes expect our relationship with God to be perfect, and for everything to keep itself up. We love him, after all. But we can’t expect “love” to carry the relationship through for us. God is perfect, and his love will always hold up his end of the bargain-he has already atoned for our sins and still does continually bless us. Our love, however, does not survive without hard work. We need to work with the Lord to serve his Church. We need to serve others with the aid of the Lord. We need to nourish our relationship with God by listening to him, being unselfish in our personal wants, and talking to him.

Even when one half of the relationship is being held up by Deity, we need to constantly watch and care for the bond. If we don’t, it may fail. This relationship is too important to let fall, and it is never the other party’s fault. We can tell ourselves we are too busy, too tired, or too mad to do our part to keep the relationship. People every day do it in their marriages, and we see the results in a high divorce rate. We cannot afford to not reach out, work, and listen unselfishly in our relationships, either with God or with our spouses.

Keeping temple covenants is the key to marriage relationships and relationships with God

As couples work hard to keep their marriages alive, they grow to love one another. Working together and serving each other have that amazing effect. In the same way, we can learn to love God more and know him more when we work with him and serve him. Keeping temple covenants is the key to upholding our end of the relationship, both with God and with our spouses. The spiritual strength that comes from obeying God has great power to heal marriages. Whether the relationship is with an imperfect, sometimes irresponsible, occasionally annoying mortal or with a perfect, loving Father in Heaven, we must do our all to hold up the relationship. Your relationships will always be your responsibility, and you have the power to keep them.

We come to this earth charged with a mission: to learn to love and serve one another. To best help us accomplish this, God has placed us in families, for he knows that is where we can best learn to overcome selfishness and pride and to sacrifice for others and to make happiness and helpfulness and humility and love the very essence of our character. (John H. Groberg, “The Power of Family Prayer,” Ensign, May 1982, 50)

Sometimes we learn humility and gratitude when spouses or children give selflessly, but it seems that we are more often required to meet the needs of others. Mormons are encouraged to accept family responsibilities. While there are trials to family life, there is also great and deep joy. Our Heavenly Father knows each of us, and he gave us families not only because he knew that they would be the best for helping us grow up, but also because he knew that we could help these family members in ways nobody else can.

Like a math textbook, families are full of problems-and none of them are easy. Some problems seem tedious, some require knowledge of difficult concepts, and others seem out of our hands. But family problems, like math problems, are designed to help us learn. By reading the scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, we learn ways to be more like Christ; we then turn to the “homework pages”: our families. The knowledge of how to act is crucial, but not as crucial as the actions themselves in our learning and growth.