Imagine being in possession of a beautiful car. The paint job is immaculate. The chrome shimmers. In fact, everything about the car gleams because it has been cared for so well.

The destination this day is a special place — a family reunion where loved ones eagerly await to renew acquaintances.

But when the key is turned in the ignition nothing happens. Not even a sound. Puzzled, you lift the hood to determine the problem. It is easily discernible. The car has no engine.

Just as an engine is required for a motorized vehicle to take us where we want to go, temple ordinances are required for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to go where they want to go — the celestial kingdom.

Exaltation cannot be obtained without the blessings that can be bestowed only in the Lord's house.

More than 100 temples are now on the earth to give people the opportunity to link their families forever.

Temple work must be done not only for ourselves but also for our kindred dead. The Prophet Joseph Smith said, "The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead." (History of the Church, 6:313.)

Successive generations of faithful families sealed in the house of the Lord is what gives the Church its vibrancy.

The kingdom of God is eternal. The Savior made that clear when He told Peter, "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19.)

What we do on earth has consequences not only for mortality but also for eternity. The choicest blessings both in mortality and eternity originate in the temple. There is no other place where things can be bound both on earth and in heaven.

Counseled President Howard W. Hunter: "Let us make the temple, with temple worship and temple covenants and temple marriage, our ultimate earthly goal and the supreme mortal experience." (Ensign, February 1995.)

Parents, President Hunter admonished, should keep a picture of the temple in the home so that the children may see it. "Teach them about the purposes of the house of the Lord. Have them plan from their earliest years to go there and to remain worthy of that blessing. Let us prepare every missionary to go to the temple worthily and to make that experience an even greater highlight than the mission call. Let us plan for and teach and plead with our children to marry in the house of the Lord. Let us reaffirm more vigorously than we ever have in the past that it does matter where you marry and by what authority you are pronounced man and wife." (ibid.)

The Lord, President Hunter stated, desires that His people be a temple-motivated people. "It would please the Lord for every adult member to be worthy of — and to carry — a current temple recommend, even if proximity to a temple does not allow immediate or frequent use of it. The things we must do and not do to be worthy of a temple recommend are the very things that ensure we will be happy as individuals and as families." (ibid.)

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the mouthpiece of the Lord today, has made it clear that the temple needs to play a prominent part in the lives of Latter-day Saints.

"Temples are unique among all buildings. . . . They are places of covenants and promises. At their altars we kneel before God our Creator and are given promises of His everlasting blessings." (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, pp. 632-33.)

The temple is also the Lord's classroom. "[The temple] becomes a school of instruction in the sweet and sacred things of God," President Hinckley noted. (Teachings, p. 635.)

Members who hold temple recommends should attend the temple as often as possible. Members who don't should live in such a way that they may also partake of the blessings of the Lord's temples.