98903_000_009Artwork from Museum of Church History and Art competitions reflects the importance of temple and family history work in the lives of Latter-day Saints.
“The great Jehovah … knows the situation of both the living and the dead, and has made ample provision for their redemption,” wrote the Prophet Joseph Smith (History of the Church, 4:597). Modern-day leaders have continued to remind us of this important concept. Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said in April 1987 general conference: “Ordinances and covenants become our credentials for admission into His presence. To worthily receive them is the quest of a lifetime; to keep them thereafter is the challenge of mortality.
“Once we have received them for ourselves and for our families, we are obligated to provide these ordinances vicariously for our kindred dead, indeed for the whole human family” (“Covenants,” Ensign, May 1987, 24).
Baptism and confirmation represent the gate by which we embark on the straight and narrow path that leads to eternal life (see 2 Ne. 31:17–18). As we grow in our application of gospel teachings, we ready ourselves to receive the sacred ordinances of the temple—the endowment and the sealing ordinances.
The following artwork by Latter-day Saint artists depicts various aspects of family history and temple work.