Nephi said, "The voice of the Lord came unto me, saying, Arise, and get thee into the mountain.  And...I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord."  (1 Nephi 17:7).

"And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord, wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things."  (1 Nephi 18:3).

I have lots of observations and questions about those verses.  Why did the Lord require Nephi to climb a mountain?  Why didn't He tell Nephi down by the seashore what He wanted to tell him?  Does the Lord expect us to put forth effort and show faith before He imparts knowledge and direction to us?  Is there something more sacred and holy about a mountain than there is about a valley or a seashore?  Is that why He sent Nephi and Moses and Elijah and Enoch and the brother of Jared and other prophets up into mountains where He would talk with them?  Have you, yourself, noticed the peaceful and sacred atmosphere and feeling that there is on a mountaintop?  Do you suppose that Satan and his cohorts don't go there, and choose to instead be down in the valleys where the people are that they're trying to influence?  Have you noticed the same atmosphere and feelings in the temple that you've felt on the mountaintop?  Have you ever considered the fact that Satan and his influences are banned from the temple?  He is simply not there.  There is no other place on Earth where that is the case except, possibly, a mountaintop where the Lord might forbid Satan to go while a sacred interview is being conducted.

Isaiah made a significant prophecy which the prophet Micah picked up and repeated almost word for word.  He said, "And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways..."  (Isaiah 2:3, and Micah 4:1-2).

We understand that "the mountain of the Lord" and "the house of the God of Jacob" is the temple.  Nephi didn't have a temple that he could go to, so when the Lord told him to "Get thee into the mountain," it was the same as saying, "Get thee to the temple, and I will there tell you great things."

I have an ongoing project.  I tell people what "Get thee unto the mountain" means, and then I ask, "What great things has the Lord told you in the temple?"

Once upon a time I was a bishop, and a farmer, rancher, and the father of eight children.  I looked at my neighbors, the Stephens brothers, and observed that they were able to be successful farmers while simultaneously holding down jobs in town.  I thought to myself, I can do that.  My boys are old enough to do a lot of the farm work, and I could bring some extra income into the family.

So I took a job in town.  I became a loan officer for a financial institution.  I was able to do the work, my employers liked me, and I was bringing home a paycheck.  That should have been an ideal situation, but life became hard.  When the phone rang, I cringed, and said to myself, "Please don't be for me!"

It was always for me.

I thought I was dealing OK with everything until one day I heard one of my little children say to another, "Let's go over to the barn and get away from grouchy old Daddy."

I hadn't realized that I was grouchy, and that my children didn't want to be around me.  Something needed to change, but I had no idea what the problem was.

So I took a day off from work, and went to the temple.  I'd been told that you should go to the temple expecting to receive revelation, and I needed one.  I got a name, went through an endowment session, and then sat in the celestial room and prayed.  Nothing happened.

I'd also been told that the revelations you seek don't necessarily happen during the first session, so, I got another name, went through a second endowment session, and again sat in the celestial room and prayed.  This time a scripture went through my mind:  "It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength."  (Mosiah 4:27).  Those are the words of king Benjamin.  That was the entire message.  It was delivered by the Holy Ghost, and it contained a world of meaning.  I instantly knew what my problem was, and what I needed to do about it.  I needed to go home and quit the job that I had in town, which I did.  I was trying to run faster than I had strength.  I hadn't known that.  Life became sweet again.

After receiving that revelation I got another name, and went through a third endowment session as my way of saying thank you for the answer to my prayers.

Do you think that the Spirit could have given me that straightforward answer if I hadn't already read the scripture?  Would I have received that answer if I hadn't put forth the effort to "Get thee into the mountain?"  Why did the revelation only come after the second endowment session?  Why couldn't it have come during the first?  Why couldn't I have gotten that inspiration at home, or out in the field, or at work?

"Get thee into the mountain," the Lord says, "and I will show you great things."

What great things has the Lord taught you in the temple?

I asked that question of my wife.  I was surprised:  she didn't have to stop and think.  She told me a story I'd never heard before.  She replied that she had a question about something that she could not understand, though she had prayed and prayed about the matter.  One day in the temple the answer came.  She said that it was "like a stroke."  Suddenly she knew!  She said that if someone had tried to explain it to her, she would have forgotten the explanation, but when the Spirit taught her, it was seared into her mind in such a way that it could never be forgotten.

What great things has the Lord taught you when you've gotten yourself into the mountain of the Lord?

I have the great privilege of serving the Wednesday mid shift in the Meridian Temple.  It's the best calling I've ever had.  I get a second Sabbath in the middle of the week.  I get to spend six hours bathed in the Spirit, and out of the world.  I'm working with 40 men and 50 women that are the best in the world.  There's no profanity.  There's no posturing.  There are no bad feelings.  There's no need to be careful about how I'm coming across to people.  I love them, and they love me.

I asked Brother Schulties what great things the Lord has taught him in the temple.  He was taught that without the work that we do there, the world truly would be wasted at the Lord's coming.  Or in other words, absolutely everything that we do would be for naught—every effort would be wasted—were it not for the ordinances and covenants and sealings that we administer and receive in the temple.

Brother Moss told me that he learned that spending six hours in the temple each week is not a sacrifice.  The rewards he gets for going to the temple far outweigh his efforts to be there.

My wife's sister was sitting in the Creation room of the Salt Lake Temple and was looking at the murals on the walls when the Spirit taught her that it would be needful for her to one day know how to make a blade of grass.

Elder John A. Widtsoe was a scientist before he became an Apostle.  He and his staff "gathered thousands of data in the field of soil moisture," but he said, "I could not extract any general law running through them.  I gave up at last.  My wife and I went to the temple that day to forget the failure.  In the third endowment room, out of the unseen, came the solution. which has long since gone into print."  (Ensign, May 1981, 25).

Melvin J. Ballard was being witness in the Logan Temple for 1,000 proxy baptisms that were being performed that day.  He wondered how that work was being received by those on the other side of the veil.  A vision opened to him of a large gathering of people at the base of a staircase on the other side of the room.  They were all dressed in white.  As each name was read in the font and the baptism was performed, a person would ascend the staircase, watch the baptism, smile, and move on.  He said that there was a person there for every name that was done that day.  He, thereafter, went throughout the Church teaching that when ordinance work is done for the dead in the temple, that person is present.

Wilford Woodruff said that there will be few, if any, who reject the work that is done for them in the temple.

"Get thee into the mountain," the Lord says, "and I will there teach you great things."