Revisiting the Dedicatory Prayer for the Okinawa Japan Temple Site
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Okinawa Japan Temple was held on December 5. As part of the ceremony, a dedicatory prayer for the temple site was offered by Elder Takashi Wada of the Quorum of the Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Per the invitation of a local church leader, I went back and re-watched the prayer. It took a couple minutes for me to locate the dedicatory prayer. At first I mistakenly searched for it in the recording of the temple groundbreaking fireside. Eventually I looked at the groundbreaking ceremony and found that the dedicatory prayer began right after 55:12 in the video.
Some things that stood out to me during the prayer were the repeated invitations to live temple-worthy lives and to be prepared to serve in the temple after the edifice itself is built and dedicated. These ideas dovetailed well with one of the themes that I noticed in several addresses by Elder Wada during his March 2021 visit to Okinawa for a local church conference (as well as the addresses of other speakers at the conference): it is okay if we aren't perfect as long as we are doing our best. This is comforting because as any self-aware adult realizes, we are all far from perfect.
Our Savior Jesus Christ has made a way for us to overcome our mistakes and shortcomings (John 3:15-17). If we keep relying on Jesus and pressing forward, we'll be spiritually successful (2 Nephi 16-21).
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