149. Miracles and Blessings from Temple Service with Rosemary Wixom
Rosemary Wixom is with us again! Through her example, personal experiences, and interactions with others, Sister Wixom shows us that when we prioritize our time in the temple, even when time seems like the only thing we don't have enough of in our lives, the blessings are immeasurable. She shares how she learned the truth of this promise from President Nelson: "The Lord will bring the miracles He knows you need as you make sacrifices to serve and worship in His temples.” This episode is one that leaves us inspired and feeling emboldened to spend more time in the temple, either as regular temple workers or through more frequent temple worship.
Rosemary and her husband served as temple president and matron of the Salt Lake Temple before it closed for renovations. Many of us also recognize her from her time serving as Primary general president. She also served on the Church’s Temple and Family History Executive Council. And, fun fact, she has a twin sister!
Links
Hear more about the temple from Sister Wixom on the Magnify podcast: Three Spiritual Guideposts for Finding Jesus in the Temple
Learn more about temple blessings with these books:
Episode Transcript
Brooke Walker:
Hello, Magnify friends. I'm Brooke Walker and Rosemary Wixom is with us today. We are so excited to learn more from her powerful and gentle wisdom about the blessings of temple service and temple worship. Through her example, Rosemary has shown that when we prioritize our time in the temple, even when time seems like the only thing we don't have enough of in our lives, the blessings are immeasurable.
Rosemary and her husband served as Temple President and Matron of the Salt Lake Temple before it closed recently for renovations. Many of us also recognize her from her time serving as Primary General President. She's also served on the Church's Temple and Family History Executive Council, and I can collectively and confidently represent the women listening when I say we are so grateful to get to learn from her on the Magnify podcast once again.
Hi, Sister Wixom. How are you, sister?
Rosemary Wixom:
I am so well. Thank you. I am honored to be with you today. Thank you.
Brooke Walker:
Oh, the honor is ours. And if I may just say, the last time you were on the Magnify podcast you taught me something about the Holy Ghost that I have referenced, honestly, probably a hundred times since. So, no pressure, but I'm so glad we get to talk again today.
Rosemary Wixom:
Well, thank you. Thank you. I hope that, I hope that I say today what the Lord would have me say. That's been my prayer for this whole experience and, I feel like His message is the message and so let's just pray that happens.
Brooke Walker:
You're always so prayerful and so thoughtful, and we feel grateful the Spirit will meet us there. I wanna start with a quote from our dear former prophet President Russell M. Nelson. This will set the table, I think for our conversation today. He said, back in 2018, he said,
“Our need to be in the temple on a regular basis has never been greater. You have reasonable access to a temple, I urge you to find a way to make an appointment regularly with the Lord to be in His Holy house. And then keep that appointment with exactness and joy.” He went on to say, “I promise you that the Lord will bring the miracles He knows you need as you make sacrifices to serve and worship in His temple.”
I know this quote has meaning to you personally. Can you give us some color to why those words resonate so personally and deeply in your heart?
Rosemary Wixom:
We love President Nelson, and this quote will always be a part of his legacy. Yes, it does have great meaning to me, and the reason it does is as I have studied it, he encourages us to be in His Holy House. He doesn't specify which ordinance to do or perform or, or whether you work in the temple, whether you attend the temple.
There's just something about a focus on the temple and being in the temple and it brings miracles. Don't we all love that phrase? We hang our hat on the fact that the miracles that the Lord knows we need are the miracles we receive through our attendance in the temple.
Now, I banked that on a quote by President Eyring in 2014 when he said, “You were tutored by Him,” meaning our father before you came into this life. “He helped you understand that you would have trials, tests, and our opportunities perfectly chosen just for you.”
So, does that make sense? That if we have trials perfectly chosen just for us, there are miracles out there, perfectly chosen just for us, and the Lord is waiting to allow us to feel those, and it's through temple participation that we can feel those miracles even more.
Brooke Walker:
If one is true, the other is true, right?
Rosemary Wixom:
I believe that.
Brooke Walker:
If the trials were perfectly chosen, then the solutions or the miracles will be too. And I loved your point that President Nelson didn't specify. You know, I mean a box to be checked. Sure. But didn't specify how much time or what we needed to do just to be there.
Just to be there. And you feel like that presence will open up the promise miracles that both President Nelson and President Eyring suggested.
Rosemary Wixom:
I believe that. Be there in your heart. And if you can't be there, be there in your heart.
Brooke Walker:
President Nelson's words inspired, I think, so many to be in the temple, right? I think including making time to be temple workers. Not just to be worshiping in the temple, but to be working in the temple.
And it seems that temple workers used to be from, you know, an older generation or a particular stage of life, but I have friends and even women younger than I that are in the temple working regularly. That's a sweet blessing to consider as well.
Rosemary Wixom:
When my husband and I began serving in the Salt Lake Temple, I was really taken by the number of young temple ordinance workers. I was impressed that they would carve out time in their schoolwork, in their employment, mothers to come and serve in the temple. But with their service, those younger ones brings the energy of youth. And let's face it, the younger temple workers move faster. They think faster, they hear better, and they are open to new ways of doing things.
Here's an example. When we began our service in the Salt Lake Temple in 2017, it was a time of new training films and they were prompted by President Monson, his philosophy and his teachings about love and inclusion were a big part of those temple videos, and we would show them at the temple workers preparation meetings.
Now you have to understand that the tradition, any tradition, is strong in the temple, and that's not all bad. It provides accuracy and structure for the ordinances that are performed there, and that is so important. But all of that must be balanced with compassion and love, and that's what those new training videos did. They taught us to think outside the box. They taught us to be sensitive to the needs of each patron, and their feelings and their consciousness.
President Monson said, it's better to break a rule than to break a heart. And so compassion and love needs to be the foundation of the temple because that's where heaven meets earth is in the temple.
Brooke Walker:
And you, and from your experience, younger temple workers were inclined toward that attitude of love and acceptance and compassion.
Rosemary Wixom:
It wasn't a change for them. They just adapted to it and they were so good at it.
Brooke Walker:
Oh, I love that change. And I love to think how that might foster feeling of, of a welcoming feeling, right? For someone who might be nervous or anxious or bringing their own burden or their own weight of trial to the temple, how that, how being met with that love and compassion and that line, what was it? Better to break a rule than break a heart, that applies beyond the temple walls.
And there's been some changes, right, that have allowed younger individuals to work and serve regularly in the temple?
Rosemary Wixom:
Well, for one thing, while we served, we learned about this opportunity for missionaries that just received their call to be set apart as ordinance workers until they left for their service.
Brooke Walker:
So in that gap period where they've been called but they haven't left yet, they can, they can serve as a work, a temple worker.
Rosemary Wixom:
And can you imagine what that would do for their mission when they go, they don't just focus on baptism, they focus on the goal—
Brooke Walker:
End game. Yeah. Or long game. I should say, long game.
Rosemary Wixom:
—eternal families. And so that was great.
And another thing that that happens, but the, the length of shifts. For a while, they were all six hours. Now, I don't know what they are in individual temples now, but many of them are four hours. That gave younger people, well, moms at home, anyone a better chance of participating. And you could do one shift a week rather than two. So it made it easier to serve.
The older temple workers and the younger temple workers, there is no difference. They are a community because they need each other. They serve with each other, they count on each other, they substitute for each other, and they know their families, they know their personalities. They gravitate towards each other, so the temple is a community of love.
Brooke Walker:
From your experience, why does it matter in our lives to be, I guess I'll use the word open, to be open to serving in the temple regularly, either as a worker, as President Nelson said, at making routine appointments as a patron with ourselves just to go. Why do you think it matters to be open toward that request or that ask?
Rosemary Wixom:
Why does it matter? Because it matters to the Lord. And that's why our prophets are encouraging the building of temples and the attending of temples. When the Lord said, it is my work and my glory to bring, to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, that's exactly what happens in the temple.
And that's why He is telling our prophets to build more temples. And with each new temple comes the need for temple workers and and patrons. Can you imagine how many workers are going to be needed and patrons to do the work? In all of these temples, there are 382 temples, either open now or on the books, so to speak.
Well, of those 382, 180 are yet to be dedicated. We haven't even felt the impact of almost half of the temples that have been announced. I remember in 2017, I cut out an article in the Church News by President Holland when he said, “We will never again count temples by twos and tens in this church.”
Now in 2017, there were 159 temples. He said, “We will now count by hundreds.” And he said, “That is the destiny we have in this work, and we are not through yet. We are to be a temple going and a temple attending people.”
So, with all of that in our minds, I have a, I don't know, I can't take, I can't give anyone else responsibility for this except Rosemary Wickham, but I have a thought.
Brooke Walker:
Okay.
Rosemary Wixom:
What if serving in the temple when it's convenient, and when you have the strength and the health and the location, you know, proximity to the temple, what if serving in the temple were a part of every Latter-day Saint? What if, like ministering, we minister to people in our ward and it's becoming so natural now. It's not a checklist.
Our calling could be to serve in the temple, or maybe we have another calling and we still serve in the temple. But what if that were a part of every one of our lives when possible? I wonder how else could we possibly sustain all that's gonna be needed in the next few years as those temples are completed.
Brooke Walker:
I love that thought. And you know, I was caught a little bit by surprise a week ago, and I shouldn't have been surprised, but I dropped something off at a friend's house, and she was kind of in a little bit of a, you know, rush, and referenced her husband who was at the temple, and it was in the middle of the day. And I said, he's at the temple? She said, yeah, he goes every week at this time.
And I, you know, they're in the busy throws of family life, but they had come together to make it work as a partnership and she covered the home base while he went and he would in turn cover home base when, I guess she has her regular day too. And I left there thinking, wow. It was, as you described, kind of your own little personal Rosemary Wickham speculation that it was, it's part of their week, it's part of their life.
What if, what if that was the, the norm for Latter-day Saints around the world who do have access to a temple and more and more will, that would be a really big shift, wouldn't it?
Rosemary Wixom:
And could you imagine what it will do for our homes and our families? Anyway, just a thought.
Brooke Walker:
I love it. This is gonna sound like a cliche question, but I'm gonna ask it anyway 'cause I really would love your insight around this wrestle and this struggle, and it's one of simply time and schedule.
We look at our schedules and it may seem like, you know, we only have so many hours in the day and we simply don't have enough time to serve regularly. And that's okay. And there are, you know, there are, we always hear times and seasons. But I will tell you, as someone in a busy time and season, I felt pulled toward the urgency President Nelson has articulated and put forward, right? To make the time and find the time. So, I guess my question would be, what blessings have you seen that come to those who say yes, and like my dear neighbor and friend who figure out a way to make it happen and make it work?
Rosemary Wixom:
Personally, I felt the blessing of health. I felt strength and stamina to be able to serve in the temple. Now you may think, whoo, my day is full. Physically, I don't know that I can do that. It's amazing. It's the Lord's way of blessing us. I marveled at those temple workers that came from Tooele or Stansberry, and on the other end that came from Park City and Francis and Camus to serve in the temple. To be there by 4:30 in the morning? Now you think about the time it took, over an hour for them to get there. There were also the people that lived in Elco. Elco was part of the Salt Lake Temple District. They were three hours plus to get to the Salt Lake Temple, it was amazing the hours just getting to the temple to serve. Now, if that's not a blessing of stamina and help and strength, I don't know what.
But the real blessing of temple service is the spirit that comes. It is a serenity of the spirit. It's a comfort. It's simply knowing I'm giving my all and the Lord is going to compensate. And He does.
I know of a widow who said, “I feel closer to my husband, who's deceased, in the temple than any other place on earth.” That drove her temple service.
And I also think about that word confidence that President Nelson taught us about, confidence before God that happens in His house. When you are in the temple, hour after hour, you become comfortable. You become confident with the Lord. You feel like you can. You’re in His house; you’re in His presence. You can turn to him for anything.
And then like President Nelson said, virtue garnishes our thoughts and charity, you feel for everyone who walks through those doors. It's just simply that scripture, “thy confidence shall wax strong in the presence of God” and we are in, the presence of His house. So, that confidence with God builds.
Brooke Walker:
I love, I love that you used the word confidence. I also love that you used the word comfortable. And I was thinking, you know, we recently moved and we've created a home or we're striving to create a home that is very comfortable for the people who visit. We are physically for our family, we are physically kind of the epicenter, and I find myself just so anxious and eager for everyone to feel comfortable. But, beyond that, when someone's comfortable in my home, it's then that I'm able to really connect with them.
So, not to compare my house to the temple in any way, but when you were describing the comfort and the confidence you feel from being in the temple regularly, I thought, what would that do with to our connection with God and to our connection with Jesus Christ if we do feel comfortable in His house, in Their house?
Rosemary Wixom:
Thank you. You just taught me about the comfort of a home. Uh, and, and you know, what comes home with us? It doesn't just stay in the temple, it comes home.
I know of two women personally in their forties and early fifties who are now serving in temple. Now, one is a divorced mother, a single mother, the other is married and a mother of five and runs her own business. But, and these women are so to speak, “living mortality.” Do they have trials? A bundle. And they have challenges. But each one on their own made a decision to add that to their lives. And to serve in the temple, and both are thriving and feeling the rewards of their decision. In fact, I asked one the other day, so what difference does it make?
And she said, “It’s as if I add light to my day, and with that light comes hope. I need hope.”
I know of another woman who told me that her temple service literally saved her marriage. She said the opportunity to serve in the temple came when there was an empty feeling and the relationships between her and and her husband, and she said, “Fulfilling the calling to serve in the temple each week softened our hearts and gave us new purpose and direction in our marriage.” So sometimes when it's least expected, look what it can do for our lives.
Brooke Walker:
Look what it can do. Can I ask you that same question you asked those women? What difference does it make for you, Sister Wixom? On a personal level, what blessings can you identify in your life that have come from serving in the temple, working in the temple, worshiping in the temple?
Rosemary Wixom:
I would describe it this way, and I've thought about that a lot. The temple carries me. It's the only way I can describe it. In the temple, I feel contented. I feel quiet. I feel free of want and worry.
It's as if the Lord says, okay, you're in my home now. If you're ready to listen, I will prompt you with those needs that you ache for. I will let you feel of my love. I will show you the whole plan. I will let you feel of the power and the strength that can come to your life because of the covenants that you're making and the ordinances you're participating in.
It's a trust. It carries me. And I think of Mosiah chapter four, verse three, when Benjamin called it peace of conscience. When you know Him, you know He knows your heart and you are at peace.
Brooke Walker:
You're at peace.
Rosemary Wixom:
So, when President Wixom and I served in the Salt Lake Temple, we would meet with couples who came, they had met with their stake presidents, they were ready to be set apart and serve in the temple. And President Wickson would always ask them, “So, why are you here? What brought you here?”
Brooke Walker:
What a good question.
Rosemary Wixom:
And it was interesting to hear, but I would say, more than 50% said we're here for a child, or we're here for our children. If our service in the temple will enhance the faith and the choices made by our children, we're ready to serve. So, it wasn't a selfish desire, you know, as much as we want that spirit for ourselves, it was for their families. It was for someone else.
Brooke Walker:
I'm so touched by that. That's so touching to think of parents, you know, going to the, the only place they could probably think of where their promised blessings, not just for themselves, but for their posterity, their kids and their families and their grandkids. That's so sweet. Can I ask a tender question?
And it's tender in that. Uh, it represents a myriad of sensitivities that can maybe prevent us from being able to be in the temple. Um, will you speak about maybe the desire to be there? The desire to serve, um, to worship, but simply not, not being able to.
Rosemary Wixom:
There are seasons in our lives. And if you are thinking, what do I do? Do I give attention to my children? Do I go to their soccer games or do I go to the temple? Know this: there are seasons in your life and there will be openings when you can participate in the temple without diluting time from your family. Don’t go on a guilt trip.
Brooke Walker:
You know what? I know that and I believe it, but there is this new what? There's this new, I can call it a desire or an urgency to like seize the season. Right? Because I mean, I never want a season to be an excuse, like there is reality in seasons, but I think there's also a lot of excuses in seasons too. And I'm just speaking of my own season and my own experience. So you gotta balance that a little bit, right?
Rosemary Wixom:
Yeah, you do. And it, and it, and the Lord will prompt you and you'll know, and the spirit will guide you. I do believe there are seasons. My season now is to be in the temple. I can go with my husband to the temple and I can go more than I've ever been able to go before. And so I will.
Brooke Walker:
I love it. I'm surrounded by good women like you who go. My dear Aunt Les serves weekly in the Ogden Temple, and they were recently closed for renovation. And Les is so busy, she helps care for my mom and she cares for her kids, and she just has so many things she's doing. And I said, are you so grateful for a break from the temple? And she looked at me and she's like, no, actually I'm not. I said, okay! She goes, I need the temple to help me do all the other things.
Rosemary Wixom:
You miss it. I would say seize the moment. You never know what the future may bring. You think you'll have your health forever. You think your legs and your feet and your arms are gonna work like they do right now, but they don't. And you don't know what's ahead. But it's funny how you think life will never change, but take it from me, it does. And you think that, oh, we’ll serve in the temple after we retire and we do some traveing, we've always wanted to do traveling. Or, I've heard some say, oh, I can't commit to serving the temple because what will I do if I need to get a substitute? It's so difficult to get a substitute when you can't be there. I would say this when I see couples serving or working in the temple, I have this brief thought. Do you realize what a gift you have? Seize the moment. Don't wait. Don't wait. Just go for it.
You know the Jewish culture has a phrase. They say “deliberate inconvenience.” And on Friday nights before their Sabbath on Saturday, they will deliberately set the table or prepare something for the meal. It is just kind of an added sacrifice to, um, add to their offering on the Sabbath. I believe that that's what temple service is, It's deliberate inconvenience. It's not easy. It's a sacrifice, but the blessings are there.
Anyway, whether you choose to work in the temple or if your efforts are to attend the temple regularly, trust that the Lord knows your heart, and I believe the desire to be in the temple holds weight with the Lord. So, if you can't attend, if you can't serve, just know that your desire to be there will be recognized by the Lord and He will know your heart and He will accept that offering and you will feel the peace of, of your just simple desire.
Brooke Walker:
I love that. I love that. Sister Wickson. What final words would you share with the women listening today about the blessings of temple service and temple worship?
Rosemary Wixom:
Let me just share this little example. I have a friend, someone who has lost his membership in the church, and therefore, he has lost his temple blessings and he's working on that to get them back. But he puts on a white shirt and a tie some days and he goes to the temple and he sits in the waiting room and he reads the scriptures.
Now, probably there's someone else in that temple who came early and all day long they've been doing ordinances and think of how they've blessed people's lives being proxy. But the Lord, I believe, doesn't love one anymore than the other. The Lord's house is a house of mercy, a house of forgiveness, and a house of acceptance.
When the Lord said in [Doctrine and Covenants] section 110, “I have accepted this house and my name shall be here and I will manifest myself to my people in mercy in this house,” He meant come. This is where you're comfortable. This is where your loved. I know your heart. I will forgive you. I will accept your offering, but it is a house of mercy.
Brooke Walker:
I love that word and I love that application. If we were to pick up in section 110, I know you find insight in verse nine as well, which says, “Yay, the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands shall greatly rejoice in consequence of the blessings which shall be poured out.” Blessings. So many blessings being poured out, not just given but poured.
Rosemary Wixom:
Right, and I believe His mercy even covers our desire to simply absorb the spirit of the temple, whether we work there, whether we serve there, or whether we just desire to be there. Because it was Joseph Smith who said, in the Kirtland Temple dedication, “We ask thee thy Holy Father that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power and that thy name may be upon them and thy glory be round about them and thine angels to have charge over them.”
Now there are many angels. There are angels on the other side of the veil, but there are also angels working in the temple. And I believe they lovingly have charge over everything we do there and they’re God’s chosen people to help us as we participate in the ordinances and make the covenants in the temple. It comes down to a desire or a choice to draw closer to Jesus Christ. A choice to find ways to spend more time with Him. And the temple is one way we can do it.
Brooke Walker:
Oh, Sister Wixom, you've been like a warm hug on the heart today. You have taken both our efforts and our desires, and you have magnified those by wrapping them up in mercy and love, and also just pure encouragement. I can feel of not just your spirit, but your love, your pure love for the temple and all that happens there. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your light with us today.
Rosemary Wixom:
Brooke, thank you for allowing me to be here.