President Heber J. Grant taught the importance of celestial marriage:
"I shall always be grateful . . . that I did not listen to some of my friends when, as a young man notquite twenty-one years of age, I took the trouble to travel all the way from Utah County to St. George to be married in the St. George Temple. . . .
"Many advised me not to make the effort - not to go all the way down to St. George to be married. They reasoned that I could have the president of the stake or my bishop marry me, and then when the Salt Lake Temple was completed, I could go there with my wife and children and be sealed to her and have our children sealed to us for eternity.
"Why did I not listen to them? Because I wanted to be married for time and eternity - because I wanted to start life right. Later I had to rejoice greatly because of my determination to be married in the temple at that time rather than to have waited until some later and seemingly more convenient time.
"Some years ago the general board members of the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association were traveling throughout the stakes of Zion speaking on the subject of marriage. . . .
"I was out in one of the stakes attending a conference, and one of my daughters, who was the representative of the Young Women's general board at the conference said, `I am very grateful to the Lord that I was properly born, born under the covenant, born of parents that had been properly married and sealed in the temple of the Lord.'
"Tears came into my eyes, because her mother died before the Salt Lake Temple was completed and I was grateful that I had not listened to the remarks of my friends who had tried to persuade me not to go to the St. George Temple to be married. I was very grateful for the inspiration and the determination I had to start life right. . . ." (Gospel Standards, pp. 359-360.)
