Latter-day Saints joined millions of their countrymen in celebrating their 19th anniversary of freedom in Russia.
With more than 11,000 Church members in the Ukraine and with more than 30,000 Latter-day Saints (or Mormons) in surrounding nations, the Kyiv temple will serve as a House of the Lord for Ukrainian Latter-day Saints to gather in worship and holy work for their families, binding them together forever.
Young people from 9 countries in Russia and in what was the Soviet Bloc, traveled many miles to participate in an evening of dance and celebration in traditional costumes, on the eve of the Kyiv temple dedication,
President Monson led Latter-day saints yesterday, August 29th, in 3 dedicatory services at what is the first temple to be dedicated in what was the Soviet Union–and key landmark in the Ukraine, the Kyiv Mormon temple.
“The magnificent Ukraine temple, Kyiv, … shines as a beacon of righteousness for all who would feel it’s light,” testified the Mormon prophet, spokesman of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Mormon temples are symbolic of their faith in the afterlife as well as literal sanctuaries for the Savior and His ongoing instruction to those who are worthy to enter His house. In the words of one Mormon apostle–a modern-day witness of Jesus Christ:
Each temple stands as a symbol of our membership in the Church, as a sign of our faith in life after death, and as a stepping-stone to eternal glory for us and our family.
Temples differ from regular Mormon meetinghouses. They are edifices where additional service is performed by proxy, for ancestors who have passed beyond the veil without having been baptized or married by one in authority, and wherein they enter in an eternal and not just temporal union. All of our efforts in proclaiming the gospel, perfecting the Saints, and redeeming the dead lead to the holy temple.
President Hinckley declared:
These unique and wonderful buildings, and the ordinances administered therein, represent the ultimate in our worship. These ordinances become the most profound expressions of our theology.
Ordinances of the temple are absolutely crucial. We cannot return to God’s glory without them.
We invite all to learn more about the Savior’s Church in our day–which Mormons claim to be the very Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
