Going to the temple and serving as a witness to her grandparents’ baptisms linked Vaishali Kilaparthi, a senior from India majoring in accounting, to her deceased relatives, she shared. “I was thinking the whole time, ‘These are literal people I’m holding in my hand.'
“It makes more sense to picture them in my mind, thinking that I will see them again, and they’ll know that I helped them.”
The Laie Hawaii Temple is one of 23 temples worldwide open for all ordinances with restrictions. BYU–Hawaii students said serving in the house of the Lord is a privilege, and they are grateful to be in the reopened temple.
Aidan Clifford, a sophomore from Alaska studying biochemistry, said temple service “offers a new perspective on life.” He continued, “I think of all the great things God has done for me and I feel optimistic about all the things that are going to happen in the future, in my life and in other people's lives.”
A father’s baptism
Aisha Liongi, a sophomore from Tonga majoring in biochemistry, said being raised in Neiafu, Tonga, meant she grew up visiting the temple once a year. Their stake members would save up money all year to travel 12 hours by boat to the nearest temple on Nuku’alofa, she explained.
When her father passed away in 2019, Riongi said it was hard on her, but she did not think to take his name to the temple. She explained, “Honestly, I thought my dad was already baptized, so I did other names.”
However, she said while the temples were still closed, she found out from her auntie that her father was not baptized.
Liongi, along with many other BYUH students from Tonga, was stuck in the United States when Tonga closed its borders because of the pandemic. She said she did not imagine she would be able to take her father’s name to the temple for months. Instead, she used the time to heal from her father’s passing by talking to those around her, she shared.
“I think of COVID as a period for us to prepare. It was a learning experience for me because I had a hard time with my dad passing, and I didn’t really talk about it with people. So, it’s really helped me to come out of my comfort zone to talk to my family and to talk to my bishop.”
Now, with the Laie temple in phase three of reopening, Liongi said she enjoyed the privilege of sharing her father’s name with the temple this spring.
Her eyes lit up as she expressed the joy she felt with her father’s temple ordinances being completed. “When I think of the temple, I think of my family. I love my family so much. I have hope I will be sealed to my family one day. I just want us all to be sealed.”
Liongi said spending time in the temple has inspired her to prepare for a mission. “I’ve always known I wanted to serve a mission, but when my dad passed, I just said no. Now, the feeling that I’m having…. is like the feeling I had when I initially got converted to the Lord when I joined the Church. It’s awesome.”
Working with family to gain temple blessings
Kilaparthi brought her two grandfathers’ names to the temple with Liongi. As the only active member of the Church in her family, Kilaparthi said it was challenging to do family history work and prepare family names for the temple because she needed permission from her living relatives to complete the ordinances.
After attending a family history meeting with the Kona Hawaii Temple president this spring, Kilaparthi said she prayed to receive permission from her family to take her deceased relatives’ names to the temple. “I said [to Heavenly Father], ‘I just need help with two or three of my names, and I don’t know what to do.’ I was thinking in my heart, ‘How am I even going to do these ordinances?’”
The same day, Kilaparthi said she received a message on Instagram from her cousin asking to speak with her. Her cousin said her grandfather’s brother had just passed away.
After that, Kilaparthi said other family members who had not spoken to her for years began reaching out. She said her cousin’s message was an immediate answer to her prayer. “I was able to ask questions, and I was able to fill in details in the family history,” she shared. “Now, I have so many names to take to the temple, and I’m the only one who can take them.
“It’s such an opportunity for you to be [in the temple] and able to help them and know they can’t help themselves. I feel I’m truly linked back to them again.”
The joy of returning to the temple
As a teenager, Clifford said he served at the temple every month despite how far away it was from home. “The temple was about 400 miles away, so we had to drive eight hours to get there. That was kind of inconvenient, but it was also kind of an adventure.”
Clifford said serving in the temple so frequently changed the way he acted every day. “It had an impact on the decisions I made growing up and how I approached things. I always made sure I was worthy to enter the temple because I didn’t want to drive all that way and not be able to go.”
After serving a mission in Honduras and returning home because of the pandemic, he said he hadn’t been to the temple for almost three years. Clifford said he relished the opportunity to use his priesthood to baptize sisters in his ward while performing proxy ordinances in the Laie temple when it reopened.
“We don’t realize what a privilege it is to use the priesthood until we haven’t done it for a while,” he described. “It’s easy to forget how it feels because I hadn’t done it for so long, but it is a special experience to go back to using that power so often. … I missed it more than I realized I had.”