Outgoing Missionaries from the California Riverside Mission attend the Rendlands Temple!

We thoroughly enjoyed an incredible day on Thursday, June 13, 2019 at the Redlands Temple with 12 missionaries who will leaving to go home next week—Sisters Parker, McDaniel, Peters, Hackley; Elders Casper, McInnes, Davis, Ngatuvai, Gallacher, Jackson, Porrazzo, and Escobar; and one missionary going to her mission in New Caledonia after being here for six weeks (visa waiter)—Sister Edwards. We love these missionaries!

Front: Sisters Edwards, Hackley, Parker; President and Sister Hammon; Sisters McDaniel and Peters;
Back: Elders Casper, McInnes, Davis, Ngatuvai, Gallacher, Jackson, Porrazzo, and Escobar

 Going to the temple with outgoing missionaries is a highlight of serving with them. Every six weeks, missionaries go home. As part of the many events prior to going home is attending the Redlands Temple for the last time as a missionary. We love going with them and enjoying the quiet, sacred time being in the temple with some of the finest people we know and have ever associated with.

All the missionaries going home or back to their missions with Elder and Sister Samuelson
who are serving here as Member Leadership Support. 

Many years ago, President Gordan B. Hinckley said, “Until you have received the sacred... ordinances of the [temple], you have not received all of the wonderful blessings which this Church has to offer. The great and crowning blessings of membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are those blessings which come to us in the house of the Lord” (President Gordon B. Hinckley “Recurring Themes of President Hinckley,” Ensign, June 2000, p. 19).

Elders Ngatuvai, Davis, and McInnes with President and Sister Hammon. These three call themselves
 "the refugees from Nicaragua." They arrived in our mission after their missions were closed.
 Incredible missionaries and leaders, all three!

Sister Hammon and I completely believe what President Hinckley said. In fact, to us, the temple is truly a place where we feel peace, a place where we can quietly worship, a place where we can and shall receive personal revelation, a place where our vision is open and we see things as we have not seen them before, a place where we can feel safe and secure from the evil elements of the earth, a place where the spirit of the Lord whispers to us, a place where the renewal of our spirit and soul culminates, and we become one with our Father in Heaven.

Outgoing missionaries in front of the Redlands Temple

President Hunter once wrote: “...the temple ordinances are absolutely crucial; we cannot return to God’s presence without them…[it is in the temple where] “we learn more richly and deeply the purpose of life and the significance of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ensign, February 1995, p. 5).

Facing the Redlands Temple

Yes, temples are special places, even the House of the Lord. May we all remember the reasons why temples are built and dedicated unto to the Lord: to seal families together for time and eternity so that we may live with them forever.

Sister and President Hammon at the Redlands Temple