A Simple Moment At The Cedar City Temple Changed My Heart

How a forgotten hearing aid taught me to love my neighbor — and why this small, unexpected moment at the Cedar City Temple changed my heart forever. In this episode of Dear Daughters of God, I share a simple experience that reminded me that the Savior’s greatest commandments are beautifully clear: Love God, and love your neighbor.

Sometimes, we can be so focused on our own checklists that we miss the chance to truly connect with those around us. This is the story of a missed opportunity, a gentle nudge from the Spirit, and the reminder that every day is a chance to start again through Christ.

If this story touches your heart, please like, share, and subscribe so we can spread more light and encouragement together. 💛

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Transcript

Stephanie: 0:05

And I've forgot my hearing aids today, so I'm just gonna sit right beside you so I can hear everything about you because you are so lovely. I wanna hear everything about Hello friends. Welcome to Dear Daughters of God. I'm Stephanie Eccles and

0:24

This is episode 27. A Simple Moment at the Cedar City Temple changed my heart.

Stephanie: 0:30

And while you're here, I hope you'll like and subscribe this video. I was recently reminded of a trip, a short trip that we took to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. Cedar City's in Southern Utah, and it's a rather small town, but this Shakespearean Festival is one of the most prestigious and well regarded Shakespearean festivals in all of the United States. And I love theater and my husband's a good sport, so he accompanies me. To the Shakespearean Festival. And I'm thrilled to be there. Well, down in Cedar City, they have a Cedar City temple. we find that we can fit it in just barely. We can fit in a session to go do sealings. A marriage ceremony for those that have passed on already and didn't have the opportunity to be sealed for time and eternity. And this gives them an opportunity to accept this ordination if they wish. So we are able to fit in this sealing session at the Cedar City Temple early in the morning, one day within this trip. And. We get to the temple and we're in this waiting room, which is the same waiting room in which guests wait to go and be sealed for live weddings, and it's a beautiful waiting room and I'm thrilled to have this little time in the waiting room because this is going to be the only time of the day I was going to have to read. My scriptures. I read the Book of Mormon every day.. I'm a checklist type of person, and this was going to be one of those moments. I was going to mark this checklist so I opened my up, my Book of Mormon and I begin to read from the Book of Mormon, which I enjoy doing every day. Soon after I begin to read, a young woman in her early twenties comes and sits down and she's sitting down kitty corner to me she's a patron of the temple. She works in the temple she's, she's very bright and lively, full of excitement to visit, she introduces herself and she starts to speak. To us very, in a very, very friendly way. At this moment I realize, uh, I forgot my hearing aids. I just wasn't used to wearing them every day and not in a good habit of putting them in. And I'm just stretching and. Trying so hard to make out what she's saying, and she's a couple seats away and kitty corner from me and Richard's one seat closer to this woman and I'll call her sister Dunford. And I'm catching maybe every fifth word and nodding my head in a friendly way as if I'm understanding everything she's saying. Huh. After she finishes talking, I introduce myself and my husband Richard, and I, I, I tell her why we're in town and say nice things about her city because I'm not sure exactly what she said to me. And then I smile and, and then she smiles and she goes right on with more conversation. And this time, I'm, I'm telling you, I, I, I think she was speaking even more quietly than she was the first time. And I'm like, oh, I cannot make out what she's saying. I mean, not even close. I, I, I can't even, I can't even guess, I can't even guess what she's saying. And I'm looking at her and I'm looking over at Richard wondering, is he getting this, is he understanding what she's saying? And he, I can tell he's intently looking and so I, I am, I'm nodding my head and, and pretending to, to, to understand what she's saying and, and then she finishes and I nod and look and, and look at Richard like. Are you gonna say something and I say something like, Uhhuh? Yeah. Yes. Uhhuh. And he says something and I think, oh, oh. He, he must have gotten something from it. He must have gotten something from what she said, but I could tell he was kind of winging it, you know, make it up as he went. And so after he said a few words, I was really. Uh, embarrassed and, and just thought, well, it's time to read my scriptures. And so I just kind of nodded and, and looked at her and smiled. And then I went back to reading my scriptures. And then, uh, within a moment or two, Richard did the same thing. He, he went back to reading his scriptures, and as I'm looking down at my scriptures. And reading. Really nothing is coming to me. I, I mean, it's just words on a page. It, it's, it's terribly bothersome to me that I am even trying to read my scriptures and I glance at her and she looks very dismayed, her head. It drops down and she looks embarrassed, and I'm thinking, but what can I do? I can't hear her. And so I just try harder to read my scriptures and it's just doing nothing. It's just meaning, nothing it, because I am only worried about what I've done and what I haven't done. And within seconds, then she stands up and she walks away. And then at that moment. I think in my head what I could have done to make the whole situation better. Well, of course I think I could have stood up. I could have gone over it. I could have sat right next to her and I could have said, I would love to hear everything you have to say. And I've forgot my hearing aids today, so I'm just gonna sit right beside you so I can hear everything about you because you are so lovely. I wanna hear everything about you and and your town here in Cedar City. And that's what I could have done. And that was just replaying through my mind as to what I could have done to make her feel loved, to make her feel important. Like she was a, a person I would've liked to get to know. But now it was too late. She was just kind of walking around in this, in this waiting area and looking down, down and out, oh. Well, I thought, well, there's nothing I can do about it. We went in into the sealing room and I made every opportunity that I could in passing to, to smile and say hello and try to give her a compliment, but it wasn't enough. And when the session was over, we both got in the car. I said to Richard, oh, what did you think of Sister Dunford? And he said, oh, I feel like such a loser. Why'd I even try to read my scriptures? I said, me too. I said, but I forgot my hearing aids. And I couldn't understand what she was saying. And he said, I couldn't understand what she was saying either. And I don't even wear hearing aids. But she really wanted to visit, didn't she? And I said, yes. She really did. She really did. She needed, she needed someone to visit. Said, ah, well, the rest of the day, I prayed for Sister Dunford. Prayed for her that someone would do better than I did, that someone would be kind to her, would befriend her. Well, time passed, and this memory came back to me many months later as I was again in the temple doing sealings, and I thought, oh. I was supposed to remember this again, and then the next morning as I was walking and I'm listening to gospel messages, elder Uchtdorf is giving a speech on BYU speeches, and the name is of his speech is this. Five messages that all of God's children need to hear. And along comes a message that I realize is exactly for me, quote, when a Pharisee asked Jesus, which was the greatest of the commandments, Savior established once and for all, what our priorities as individuals and as a church should be. Love God. Love your neighbor. That is the center of the gospel. It should be the center of our every effort as a church and as disciples of Jesus Christ. When he said that, I realized, ah, that's what the Lord wants me to learn. The first two great commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. Then he spoke more and more about these first two greatest commandments. He said, quote, when we wonder where we should put our focus as parents, siblings, church leaders, ministry, and brothers and sisters and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints it is already decided. Love God. Love your neighbor. Went on to say the ancient Pharisees compiled hundreds of rules and commandments from sacred writings. They made great effort to catalog them, comply with them, and enforce others to live by them with precision. They believe that exact obedience to the smallest of these procedures would lead people to God. Where did they go wrong? They lost sight of the center. They lost sight of what was of most worth of their eternal purpose. They saw the multitude. Of rules as ends in themselves instead of as the means to an end. Are we susceptible to the same mistake today? If we were to brainstorm, I'm sure we could compile a list of latter day expectations that would rival those amassed anciently. It is not to say that these rules and gospel topics are not important or valuable. No. They have a purpose. They're a part of the whole. They can lead us to the center, but they are not the center. They are branches of the tree, but they are not the tree. And if they ever become separated from the tree, they will have no life. They will not bring forth fruit that will remain, they will wither and die. The lesson I learned from Elder Uchtdorf's Sermonette was that. The gospel isn't about checklists, and I like checklists. But they can get in the way when it comes to living the gospel because the gospel is the message of peace and goodwill, and the first two commandments are. To love God, and love our neighbor. And that's what the Lord wanted me to focus on, was loving my neighbor. That's what was important That day is loving Sister Dunford. But I wasn't left feeling, feeling like I was lost. because Elder Uchtdorf also reminded us. That our Heavenly Father is a God of new beginnings. He blessed us with a savior Jesus Christ, who was born to a mortal woman, and he was a perfect being and descended below all of us. And sacrificed his life and paid for our sins so we through repentance, could be forgiven and start again. Every hour of the day, we can start again, and that's the lesson that I needed to learn and that I share with you. Today. The greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbor, and that's where our focus should be. Thank you for joining me today. For now, I'll say for Will and shall we meet again?