Unique view of marriage - Unique definition of family

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a unique view of marriage. On their website LDS.org Under the topic of Temples we read:

In our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness, a husband and wife can be together forever. The authority to unite families forever is called the "sealing" power. It is the same power that Jesus bestowed upon His Apostles during His ministry on earth (Matthew 16:19). An eternal marriage is therefore called a sealing, and children born or adopted into such eternal marriages can also be sealed to their families forever.

Unlike marriages that last only “’til death do you part,” temple sealings ensure that death cannot separate loved ones. For marriage relationships to continue after death, those marriages must be sealed in the right place and with the right authority. That place is the temple and that authority is the priesthood (D&C 132:7, 15–19).

A husband and wife who are sealed in the temple, make sacred covenants with the Lord and with each other. These covenants assure them that their relationship will continue after this life if they remain true to their commitments. They know that nothing, not even death, can separate them. Those who are married should consider their union as their most cherished earthly relationship, for a spouse is the only person other than the Lord whom we have been commanded to love with all our heart (D&C 42:22).


As a little girl I would spend Sunday evenings at my Grandpa and Grandma Quist’s house.  The stories I grew up on were ones of my brother’s family.  Their mom died when they were young, she was Grandma and Grandpa Quist’s oldest daughter, Barbara.  After her death, my dad married my mom, a single woman who became a mother of four and then a mother of seven.  

My mother enjoys telling the story of the day my older my sister was born.  It was her first child and my dad’s fifth.  My Grandparents came to the hospital and looked at my sister through the glass.  My Grandpa said she is as much a member of our family as any of the other grandkids. Grandpa and Grandma Quist loved, listened to and laughed with me and my sister as if we were connected by blood.

My 5th grade teacher, who grew up with Barbara, pointed out to me that I was not in fact cousins with all the kids I claimed to be.  She felt it was necessary for me to know that the Quist’s were not really family.  I wasn’t even related to them through marriage because there wasn’t a marriage anymore.  I raged at her, got sent to the principal’s office, then home, then to my Grandpa.   He carefully explained that marriage never ends, family never ends and teachers don’t always understand everything. These beliefs didn’t start with him, they were taught to him.   He learned them from his father.  

This family I come from, both blood and sealed, crossed the plains, sacrificed to build LDS Temples, entered those temples and made covenants.  Covenants that they taught their posterity were important and more binding than blood relation, so that one day when a teacher would make a little girl wonder who she really was and who she really belonged to, she would have a loving Grandpa to tell her.  

In a talk given by President Ezra Taft Benson titled What I Hope You Would Teach Your Children about the Temple. He warns us that sometimes we refrain to talking about the temple because we hold what happens there to be sacred.  By doing this we don’t pass on the desire to go to the temple to your children and grandchildren. He concludes with, “God bless us to teach our children and our grandchildren what great blessings await them by going to the temple.”  I am thankful that my inclusion in the Quist family resulted in a strong personal desire to attend the temple for myself.

By going to the Temple we have hope that our families can remain families for eternity.  Knowing this helps me deal with the “Wolves”, as Elder Bruce C Hafen calls them in his talk Covenant Marriage.  Wolves are events that happen that try to take away from your marriage.  He teaches that they can in three forms, natural adversity, our own imperfections, and excessive individualism.  The temple teaches us to continuously try to improve and forgive.  We are working on our own imperfections while forgiving others quickly as they work on theirs.  We are taught to have patience in afflictions as we deal with living in an imperfect world.  We get sick, fires burn down our homes, earthquakes happen, all of these things create opportunities to learn and grow, just as leaving the Garden of Eden helped Adam and Eve learn. We are also taught to sacrifice and give freely of ourselves and possession to help others.

If this idea seems new to you, and find yourself asking how is this possible?  I think Elder Holland answers that question best in the following clip.

Here is Grandpa Quist with my daughters Reagan and RileighAnne.