”I caught a glimpse of that kind of family life [i.e., one guided ‘by kindness and pure knowledge,’ ‘with an increase of love’ after reproof, ‘that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death.’ D&C 121] the other day in the Salt Lake Temple.

“The father was a handsome young man, an air force officer, a jet fighter pilot. The mother was a beautiful young woman. With them were three lovely children.

“They had joined the Church in the South a little over a year ago. They had put into their lives the program of the Church. They had experienced a joy they had never previously known. Now he had been ordered to Vietnam on an assignment fraught with peril. They all sensed the terrifying odds against his coming back alive and whole.

“It was a picture almost celestial in that quiet, sacred room of the Lord’s house. There in the authority of the Holy Priesthood they were sealed together as a family with a bond and covenant that time could not break and death could not destroy.

“At the conclusion of that holy ordinance the father took is beloved companion in his arms, and together they held their beautiful children.

“With emotions incident to the expected separation that would divide them in a few hours when he left for Asia, but with a faith that shone through her tears,. the wife looked up into his eyes and softly said words to this effect: ‘Come what may now, dear, you are ours and we are yours, forever.’

“Somehow heaven seemed very near that morning.”

– Gordon B. Hinckley, 1967