Emmeline and the Savior

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Emmeline and the Savior

Though she was very elderly, Emmeline was going to go to the temple the next day. That evening she felt impressed to take extra care in preparing her clothes. She took the time to press them and get everything just right. While she always looked nice, “she wanted it to look special for some reason.”

The next morning in her lovely white dress Emmeline entered the temple and proceeded to the first room. Just before she entered, she looked up and saw the Savior standing before her, dressed in a white robe, and above the floor.

“Emmeline,” he said, “how beautiful you are in your beautiful dress.”

Emmeline did not elaborate much further. She faced the two teenage girls who had come to see her, and said, “When you go to the Temple, promise me that you will never, never go with soiled clothes, or with clothes that are wrinkled, because one day you will see the Savior there.”

This made such a deep impression on young Ethel Newman that she never forgot it. Ever after, she considered that place to be holy ground.

My hope is that we all consider the temple the holiest ground on earth, the House of God, and that we take extra care to be clean and prepared both within and without.

And by the way, Emmeline was Emmeline B. Wells, the fifth general president of the Relief Society and a great and noble daughter of God.

Source: The James Moyle Oral History Program of the History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Account recorded of Ethel C. Newman Lund as interviewed by Davis Bitton, 17 May 1987.