As the Yigo Guam Temple nears completion, a temple booklet has been specially created for the island saints who will be attending it. Elder James R. Rasband shared some insights on the process of the making of this booklet.
“The inspiration came from Elder Gong,” he said. Last fall Elder Gerrit W. Gong shared his strong impression that it was important to turn the hearts of the people in the Asia North Area to the Temple. “As is often the case, prophets, seers, and revelators articulate a guiding principle and then it is up to us to find ways to put that principle into practice.”
As part of that effort, said Elder Rasband, “we thought it was important to translate materials about the temple into the languages of the Micronesian Saints so that when they came to the Yigo temple they would hear the temple ordinances and covenants in their own language.”
As they counseled with the temple department and looked at the materials already available, they found that the existing materials were not a good fit for first-time temple attendees, which will be the case for many of our faithful saints in the Yigo, Guam temple district.
Elder Rasband explained that the booklet went through many drafts as efforts were made to be clear and concise and to cover the topics needed for saints who would be worshipping in the temple for the first or second time in their life. In the end, the temple department was so pleased with the outcome that it suggested the booklet could become a framework for other areas in the world.
This booklet is remarkable in the way it takes the most relevant parts of previously written temple material and makes it very concise and doctrinally correct. It guides the reader through the whole process of what temples are and what it takes to be prepared to go through the temple. It is easy to read, understand and includes pictures of the Yigo temple, with a local falvor, which gives it a personal feel.
The hope is that this booklet will help inspire the saints who read it to follow the counsel of our prophet, President Nelson, who promised “that the Lord will bring the miracles He knows you need as you make sacrifices to serve and worship in His temples.” (2018 October general conference "Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints"). If the saints can be in the temple, the miracles that our father in heaven knows their family needs will be manifest in their lives.
Booklets have been sent out to the priesthood leaders in hard copy and will be distributed to the saints. Elder Rasband said, “we hope that the saints in Guam and Micronesia will feel that the Yigo temple is OUR temple.”