The Exponent blog is sharing guest and reader responses to the news of the changes to the LDS temple endowment and other temple ordinances announced 2 January 2019. We welcome your contributions in the comments or as a guest post using this link
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“For me, my time in the temple today felt like a long awaited breath in. I have struggled and cried many angry and hurt tears over years of temple service. As a single woman and a temple worker. As a young married mom. As a middle mom, now. Trying to breathe through the hurt to hold on to the things about the temple that I love. Today felt like a million answered prayers. It also felt like my hurt was heard and validated by my Heavenly Parents. Like our collective cries were enough to finally break through tradition. I am so humbled. So grateful.” – BR
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“I’m feeling relieved about the changes (finally!!), but sad because this would have meant so much to me 10 years ago when I decided to stop going to the temple, largely because of these issues. It would have brought me so much peace. Now, 10 years later, I believe so little about Mormonism that I have no desire to go to the temple. The changes have come too late for me and so many others.” -LFL
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“Like many others, I’m so excited by the changes and the theological implications. In a selfish sense, I’m also mourning my own experience, and how much better it could have been. I find myself wishing I could be sealed over again, receive the initiatories over again, make covenants in a way that doesn’t make me hold back in my mind… I want to talk about it with my friends. I want to talk about it with my in-laws. I need to sort through these feelings in a way that doesn’t use concealed and coded language. It’s difficult to be told by men not to openly celebrate or react to something that doesn’t impact them as much as it does us. Why minimize something so theologically monumental?” – ECR
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“I am so, so incredibly happy that women going through the temple for the first time will be saved so much cognitive dissonance, pain, and trauma going forward. I am so, so incredibly sad, frustrated, and angry that church leaders have made these changes without even hardly acknowledging it, boiling it all down to “details” and “adjustments”. Generations of pain mean nothing to them.” – LRP
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“As I’ve mulled over these changes, I’ve felt more and more upset and hurt. The temple is the main thing that contributed to me doubting the existence of and love of God. I’m not sure how to recover from that, or if I ever will. Part of me is so glad I was “right” and the temple was wrong, that God apparently isn’t sexist and I’m not inherently inferior as a female. But the pain I felt for so many years is not so easily erased. I don’t know how to heal from the spiritual trauma. I don’t really know what I believe about God anymore, and I’m unsure how to pick up the pieces of my shattered faith in a loving and just God.” -RBR
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“The changes today don’t fix the inherent problems for single women in the church. We may not covenant to a non-existent husband anymore, but the initiatory still refers to the “new and everlasting covenant” – a covenant that I won’t participate in. When we cross the veil, the promises of eternity with God will still include references to a posterity that I don’t want. The church still sees me as deficient, incomplete, and not worthy to be by God’s side as I am. I still don’t have a place here.” – Julia
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Standing in the crowded, noisy, bustling Celestial room last night after the session, I could hear dozens of conversations about “the changes.” And we’ll all keep discussing “the changes” for a while still to come. I’m happy about it all. It was time for this. We have been ready. And my heart just keeps hearing, “…a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” -Rebecca
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“My heart is full of joy for these changes. To borrow from the lovely talk at last conference, I’ve felt a lot of “divine discontent” towards the temple for awhile now. To hear that so much has been fixed is beautiful. I know it isn’t completely fixed yet, not by a long shot, but I’m eager to attend after a pained hiatus and witness the changed ordinances firsthand. I can’t wait for the day that all has been made right and whole and safe for ALL of God’s children to attend the temple.” – ML
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“My joy at the changes that have been made is mitigated somewhat by the charge for silence. Pay no attention to the men behind the veil. Is this true change, or another pedestalization? “Women, you’re amazing! But please don’t tell anyone about it.” The press release added to my complex feelings. We have never been charged to refrain from talking about ordinances in the past, yet here we are dealing with another form of silencing – trading Eve’s silence in the lone and dreary world for our own”. – FRE
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“I am looking forward to going and seeing how I feel about the changes. I remember the changes 30 years ago, and appreciated those. I am feeling really Thankful for these changes, and I am so sorry for those it came too late for.” – JBW
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“For me, 43 years of pain, 43 years of wondering, if a decision had to be made, “Is this something I should follow my husband on just decide on my own?” 43 years of lacking self-confidence in my own thoughts and inspirations because I was supposed to “hearken” (hate that antiquated word) unto my husband. 43 years of nonsense and abuse in my church.” -LL
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“I went to the temple yesterday, and found myself smiling at every change I noticed. I was very happy with the corrections that a lot of women had been asking for, such as not veiling during the prayer, and being able to make covenants directly with God. But more often it was the unexpected things that made me the most happy, changes that I am still pondering. I loved having the Law of the Gospel defined as the higher law of Jesus Christ, and I liked having Eve more involved especially when she asks Adam if WE are going to obey all of God’s commands. I am glad that President Nelson was responsive to these concerns as it has often felt that concerns have been dismissed. However, after receiving my endowment in 1984 and having been very upset at the temple language then, I knew that the endowment could change to reflect what we need today, and so I have been hopeful for a long time that it would eventually be updated. I appreciate all those women and men who have contributed to making this change possible.” – SW
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“We’ve been surrounded by talk and visuals of the top-down model of the church for so long that by now it’s deeply embedded in our psyches. But these changes bring to mind a new perspective. Perhaps the true model of the restoration comes from the bottom-up. As members are filled with light and inspiration, we as a people generate a beacon that at last reaches the world through the mouthpiece of the prophet. This encourages me to double down in seeking truth and to share more freely the light I receive.” – SD
Thanks so much for all these responses! And thanks, Exponent folks, for gathering and sharing these! I think this is so valuable to see the range of things people feel, and especially to have captured so well all the reasons why even with such positive changes, most of us are still uncomfortable with things like the admonition not to talk about them.