easter week / monday

I am so stoked for Easter this weekend, not just because of how special it is but because it's my BFF Amanda's birthday and we're going to conference!

So that's what's getting me through this week.

But beyond the fun, I wanted to focus on my Savior this week. 

I feel like my relationship with Him is strong, but it can always be deepened.

I'm stealing an idea from easter.mormon.org to study Christ's last week on earth.

Each day I'll be using the website as well as The New Testament and "Jesus the Christ" by James E Talmage to learn more about Christ's example and why it matters in my life.

I truly believe that having Jesus Christ in my life has changed everything and it brings me so much comfort and joy knowing that He'll always be here for me.

Join me if ya want in growing closer to Him this week!

(sorry, I'm already on #missionarymode #convertallthepeople. jk. but seriously.)

Monday: Cleansing the Temple

Soon after Christ arrived in Jerusalem, he went to the temple. 

In our church, the temple is the closest thing to heaven that we have here on earth. It's a holy sanctuary and literally the House of the Lord.  

Since Christ just a few decades earlier (which is nothing in His time frame) had been in heaven, he probably had a certain expectation of what the temple would look and feel like.  

But it wasn't anything he expected. 

"In the outer courts were stalls of oxen, pens of sheep, cages of doves and pigeons; and the ceremonial fitness of these sacrificial victims was cried aloud by the sellers, and charged for in full measure." - Talmage

What he did next may come off as anger, spiteful, even violent. 

"He promptly applied physical force...Hastily improvising a whip of small cords, He laid about Him on every side, liberating and driving out sheep, oxen, and human traffickers, upsetting the tables of the exchangers and pouring out their heterogeneous accumulations of coin."  

Why would Jesus Christ act like that?

He explains himself when he "thundered forth a command that made them quail: "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." 

It wasn't anger or violence, it was courage.  Christ didn't hesitate to act and He definitely didn't sugarcoat it when dealing with the temple. He understood that it is the House of the Lord, and absolutely sacred. 

Whether it was popular or not, He defended the temple. 

Defending the temple, for me, is defending my family.  

Inside the Salt Lake temple is where my grandparents and parents were sealed for time and eternity.

It will always be a source of peace and power in my life.  

I believe wholeheartedly in the work that goes on in the temple. I know that there is life after death and the temple is the bridge between this life and the next.  Not only can I receive ordinances for myself like my endowment and marriage sealing, but I can also perform those ordinances for those who have passed on.  Those individuals then have a choice in heaven to receive those ordinances if they so choose. 

For some outside our faith, the temple is an easy target to attack, but whatever opposition comes, I will never deny what I have felt within those walls and my testimony of its truth. 

For Jesus Christ, the temple was sacred, holy, and of utmost importance.

So it is for me too.