25. Looking for the Good

A thought written on Monday evening, April 26, 1999, for publication in the May 1999 issue of the Bountiful Twentieth Ward Newsette. Henry Haurand served as a counselor in the stake presidency when F. Michael Watson was president of the Bountiful Utah South Stake. Later he served as president of the Frankfurt Germany Temple.

President Henry Haurand spoke in our sacrament meeting a little over a month ago. He shared tender feelings about the Savior, recounting some of the pivotal events from that final week of the Lord’s mortal life. He also mentioned some experiences from the three years he and Sister Haurand served in the Frankfurt Germany Temple.

In the late 1980s, before his call to serve in our stake presidency, President Haurand had been in Germany supervising construction of the Frankfurt Temple, little realizing that a decade later he would return there as temple president.

He once shared an experience he had in 1987 in the not-yet-completed temple: “President and Sister Carlos E. Asay visited the temple. As we were standing in the celestial room Elder Asay asked me if the workers could feel the spirit of the sacred work they were performing. I answered that I did not think so. It is my experience that when you go through the temple looking for things that are not completed yet, that still need to be cleaned up, you cannot feel the Spirit of the Lord. But when you look with your spiritual eyes and see how it will look when it is completed, then you can feel the Spirit. Elder Asay said this is an eternal principle. When you look for fault, you can not have the Spirit of the Lord, but when you look for the good, then you can.”

This principle, President Haurand observed, is true in marriage, with our children or friends, with our neighbors and coworkers. When we look for fault, we cannot have the Spirit of the Lord, but when we look for good, we can.

The Prophet Joseph Smith may have had this same principle in mind when he penned the thirteenth Article of Faith: “. . . If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things” (emphasis added).