So I'm a never-mo and I'm writing something and I want to get some facts right. But I wasn't able to find any definitive confirmation with this part.

I know to be able to attend a temple wedding you need to have a "temple recommend". But at what age do LDS people obtain this recommend? Is there a clear cut off?

Since mishies starts at 18/19, does that mean you won't see younger teens at all in any temple wedding?

Also can anyone confirm that children under 8 are not allowed to enter the temple?

Nope. No one is allowed to attend a temple wedding ritual, unless they have gone through the temple and "taken out their endowments." Missionaries go through the "endowment" ritual before their mission, and some are as young as 18. Unmarried Mormons who have not been on a mission go through the "endowment" ritual before they are married.

1. The "anointing" ritual is when the person's body is anointed with holy oil, and blessed, and dressed in the Mormon underwear, which must be worn day and night, for the rest of the person's life.

2. Next is the "endowment" ritual, which is longer, and includes a movie. At various points in the movie, the movie is paused, and the officiator instructs the people to dress themselves in the robes and aprons and veils, and then to switch them around, according to the instructions.

3. The "sealing" or wedding ceremony takes place only AFTER the bride and groom have gone through the first two rituals. Years can go by, in between.

I was married in the temple, and my daughter was married in the temple. My daughter's groom's little brothers and sisters were NOT ALLOWED in the temple at all on that day.

My daughter's bridesmaids were NOT ALLOWED, because they had not gone on missions, and were not yet married.

The main reason for this is secrecy. The Mormons don't want anyone to see the weird costumes that people wear in the temple. They think people need to be "prepared", indoctrinated, and ready. LOL, those costumes are crazy! At various points in the rituals, the women have to veil their faces, and those veils are thick, and difficult to breathe through. The headpiece ruins bride's hair. The heavy robe and apron cover and wrinkle the wedding dress. Many brides don't wear their wedding dress at all in the temple. The temple "matrons" will make a bride wear temple-issued sleeves, if the wedding dress's sleeves are too short, and a "dickie" at the neckline, if it's too low.

There's a waiting room, for children and those who are not worthy to enter therein. The waiting room is hot and crowded, with bored kids, and unhappy adults. There's a TV blaring Mormon propaganda and advertising, and various Mormon pamphlets and books lying around. I spend a few weddings in that waiting room, and I ended up taking the little kids for a walk around the temple grounds, and the 100-degree heat was better than waiting in that awful room.

Mormons expect family members and friends to WAIT until the wedding ceremony is over, then everyone poses for photographs on the steps in front of the temple doors (fake doors, just for show), as if the wedding had been a family affair, attended by all.

Kids are bussed in to be "baptized for the dead," which is a ritual that the children can do. I don't know at what age--I think 12--the children are told to do this.

The only time I have seen little children and babies in the temple is when they are sealed to their parents, which is a special ritual for children born before their parents were temple-sealed, for blended families, and for adopted children. These children were not "born in the covenant", so they need a special sealing ceremony.

You know it is all made-up hogwash, don't you. Joseph Smith had his favorite slave and the slave's wife sealed to him in the temple--as his "slaves."

I fucking love this forum!

That is one reason why I no longer participate

exminion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Nope. No one is allowed to attend a temple
> wedding ritual, unless they have gone through the
> temple and "taken out their endowments."
> Missionaries go through the "endowment" ritual
> before their mission, and some are as young as 18.
> Unmarried Mormons who have not been on a mission
> go through the "endowment" ritual before they are
> married.

But I think temple recommend is not the same as endownment, you don't need to be "endowed" to attend a temple wedding, only need to have a temple recommend which is renewed once 2 years after you pass an interview, am I understanding this correct?

Thank you for your informative response. More non-Mormons need to be aware and fully understand the reality of this kind of possibly family-less wedding!

No...at least not when my parents got temple married after mom converted to the cult in 1959.

But Remember: ChurchCo is very pro-family!!

"Families can be together forever" comes with more terms & conditions than a real estate contract.

So I'm reading all the interview questions or requirement from wikipedia, could someone tell me why a 15/16 year old can't get temple recommend and thus attend weddings?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 10:21AM by bcole2.

I also came across this article:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/age-changes-for-youth-progression-and-ordination-announced?lang=eng

So it seems teens CAN get "limited-use" temple recommend, and enter the temple. But "A limited-use recommend is only valid for proxy baptisms and confirmation ordinances."
Hence, youth even with this type of recommend can't enter the temple for weddings. Am I correct?

Still from all the interview questions it didn't say a thing about age....



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 10:29AM by bcole2.

For me personally waiting to be "sealed" to my parents watching Johnny Lingo for the what? 20th time by then?, I chuckled outloud, thinking the old lady attendent was joking and would at least let us kids pass the time with a Disney film or something, nope! Good ole original Johnny Lingo again, at age 18 by then, I was not impressed and kept looking at My wrists and wondered which way you cut again, lengthways? or up and down? lol. I jest, but Seriously had no/zero 'spiritual ' feelings at all that day, and when my mom came out with veil over her face, and that freaked me out pretty bad, and what with very strange outfits everyone had on, being 18 and already doubting some, I thought: "oh god, I think we have been snookered I nto a cuhlt"!,but went thru ceremony to make folks happy, then I went in military after that, and then college luckily, became inactive. made friends with Zen Buddhists and love their philosophy. way more peaceful, and good for heart.

To understand this issue fully, some history is required. The pre-1990 mormon endowment ceremony was right out of hell. It wasn't sacred at all. It was fucking creepy and evil. It definitely had to be kept a secret if anyone who had been through it didn't want to be viewed with suspicion by everyone else on the planet who had not been through it. It was an intervention with threats to kill you through gruesome means if you ever revealed the threats of physical violence that had been made against you there. These threats included having your throat cut open from ear to ear, and having your body cut wide open at the chest and waist level. Everyone present in this ceremony pantomimed these gruesome actions on their own bodies, such as using your thumb in a slashing motion as you draw it from one ear, down across your throat, and back up to the other ear while saying "...I would suffer my life to be taken". They don't teach you about that stuff in Sunday school. It is designed to scare the hell out of you and to program in you, a lifetime of obedience to mormon church leaders. This was up until 1990. Older versions of this ceremony included a description of having birds feed on your internal organs after they had been torn out of your body. Now I understand that you might be coaxed to cut your own throat. But who would tear out your internal organs from your body so that the birds could feed on them afterward? Is that a calling? Then there was the older versions of the mormon endowment ceremony that included an "Oath of Vengence" against the United States Government. All of this was preceded by your being nearly naked in a ceremony where they touch skin-to-skin (among other things) your genitals.

After going through even this pre-1990 ceremony, you certainly didn't talk about it. As soon as the internet and social media got popular in the 1990's, the church quickly retreated from these practices, and abandoned the most outrageous elements of this so-called eternal ceremony. Too many people were talking anonymously about this on the internet. This ceremony certainly wasn't for kids. It shouldn't have been for adults either. But those who were tricked in to it by their loved-ones who never warned them in advance (for obvious reasons), never talked about it themselves either afterwards, and this evil chain of horror and acceptance of bad things, continued to grow.

The reason you had to be married or to go on a mission first, has everything to do with the intervention aspects of the ceremony. When you're sitting in the temple session room and they spring these ungodly things on you, you have seconds to either go along with it, or to walk out. If you've already quit your job and given your mission farewell speech, or if your spouce-to-be is sitting across the room from you (no time or ability to talk with them) and it's your wedding day, you just go with it or else walk away from your life as you have always known it. No one does that. When it's done it's done. They own you and/or, your marriage.

Since the mormon church abandoned these blood-oaths in 1990, their endowment ceremony has changed from being creepy and evil, in to a bit more benign and mainstream (actually, just stupid). They keep the secracy element more to create curiosity in others who might want to attend in the future. It's more like a secret ride at Disneyland that everyone says is amazing except they can't tell you anything about it. The secracy also helps to create the illusion to outsiders that their temple ceremonies are eternal and unchanging, and to hide the fact that they once used institutionalized death threats to control their members. Now you know why it's not for the kids.

Is there anyone here who wants to claim that I am lying about this? Ask anyone what year their temple wedding took place, or when they went on their mission. If they give you a date previous to 1990, ask them if they pantomimed their throat being slashed in their endowment ceremony. Act the throat slashing out on yourself as you ask the question. Catch them by surprise with this question and look carefully at the very brief candid look on their face (of horror) before they regain their composure and tell you that the temple ceremony is sacred and that they can't talk about it.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 12:19PM by azsteve.

Appreciate the elaborate reply, very informative.
Not to downplay other people's sincere reply here, but I know how evil and creepy, and shit temple weddings are. It isn't quite the point of the question I'm asking here.

What I wanna know is:
Is it just unspoken rule that if you are underage, just can't go ask for temple recommendation, even though there is nothing in the church rule says about age?

Say I'm 16, devowed TSCC member, and my sister is getting married in the temple. And I want to go get temple recommend so that I can be at her wedding, what kind of response would I get from the TSCC? Can anyone help me out with this?

In other words, a hypothetical scenario that an adult who can pass the worthiness interview and get temple recommend, now make him/her a minor, why would he/she now cannot get temple recommend??? I can't find anything written on the internet that says the minor can't but that's why I'm here to ask what the real life situation is....

Or is this going to be in the grey area, like who the children will be sealed to when parents get a temple divorce... that the bishop doesn't know either, mostly likely tell you to shut up and pray!?

Somebody help me out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 01:17PM by bcole2.

You can't get your endowments at age 16. They don't ask your age in the TR interview because they already know how old you are.

They could change the age limit, just like they changed the age at which youth go on missions, though I see no reason why they would do that. As mentioned above, the pressure applied when you are already about to go on a mission or about to get married keeps people from bolting out of the "endowment".

No.

You can only get a temple recommend for:

1: Baptisms for the dead, aged 12 and up. You will only have access to the baptism area of the temple.

2: If you want to get your endownments usually 18+ . I"m not sure the age is written down somewhere, but I've never seen anyone younger than 18 get to do this.


you cannot attend a temple wedding unless you have have been through the endownment ritual. There is no option to get a temple recommend just to attend a wedding.

Getting the temple recomment, involves being worthy for a certain amount of time (usually a year) and paying a full thithing in that time.

It's the ultimate blackmail..

So no, children or teenagers are not allowed in at a temple wedding ceremony.

Now I understand this is a "Recovery Forum", not a Q&A at the missionary desk.... so forgive me for that.. I'll hop ask else where if it annoys people here.

from the handbook:

"Most single members will be interviewed for a recommend for their own endowment when they are called as missionaries or when they are to be married in a temple. Single members in their late teens or early twenties who have not received a mission call or who are not engaged to be married in a temple should not be recommended to receive their own endowment. However, they may receive limited-use recommends to perform baptisms for the dead. The desire to witness temple marriages of siblings or friends is not a sufficient reason for a young adult to be endowed."

THiS!


Exactly how I thought it was.

As far as I understand, only those who are "endowed" are allowed to see a temple wedding, and they don't allow that unless you're about to serve a mission which is 18 for males. Women can go on a mission at 19, and even then, there are some women who get "endowments" done even though they're not going on a mission or even planning to get married soon. Even though some temple weddings have their endowed guests wear Sunday clothing to see the "sealing," they still won't allow anyone who isn't "endowed" to attend. Those under 18 only get a "recommend" to do baptisms for the dead, or to be "sealed" to their parents if they're adopted, or their parents were converts. I can imagine it must be a shock to those children seeing their parents in those weird costumes.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 02:47PM by doyle18.

I don't see where anyone says they're annoyed.

Teens can indeed get limited-use recommends for proxy baptisms. But full recommends are first issued when a member needs to be endowed, which occurs for missions or marriages. Until then, full recs simply are not necessary.

The only way a minor can get a full recommend is if the minor is getting married before age 18. This happened to one of my cousins. She married in the temple at 17 IIRC, so had to have a full-use rec (endowment immediately preceded sealing). Her brothers, the oldest being 15, were not allowed into the sealing room.

Ok, finally, that quote from the handbook is what I was looking for.

Case closed, thanks everyone.

Family continuity is partly dependant on youngers seeing what events effects older brothers, sisters, parents & friends; if ChurchCo really believed in family values, they'd change this... But of course, other matters are More Important to them.