A PROMISE FULFILLED

Today's temple preparation meeting included a video reminding us to keep proxy ordinance work as sacred and special as the ones done when people come for their own.  Later in the evening, a Brother and Sister Parma from Utah came to do proxy sealing ordinances.  Sister Parma had mentioned earlier that one of the people for whom her husband was acting as proxy was very important to him.  As we were finishing, I asked Brother Parma if he could share why the one person was so special to him.  He began to sob as he told his story.

Brother Parma was introduced to the church and converted as a young man in the 1970's here in Italy.  One of his first church responsibilities was to be a home teacher to an older couple in his ward.  The husband was an active and faithful member, but his wife was not a member and refused to have anything to do with the church.  This brother asked his young home teacher to promise him that one day he would go to a temple and have them sealed together for eternity.  Brother Parma had later immigrated to the United States, married and raised his family, but had never forgotten his promise.  Now that the required number of years had passed, Brother Parma wanted to return with his wife to the temple here in Italy to fulfill the commitment he had made almost fifty years previously.  He added that he felt the presence and acceptance of this couple in that sealing room.  As ordinance workers we were all very moved by this simple yet eternally significant proxy ordinance.

Bertel Thorvaldsen's "Christus" and "Twelve Apostles" in the Rome Temple Visitors' Center