While Latter-day Saints have used the term “both sides of the veil,” this expanded phrase and the way it is centered on the temple is powerful, directed as it was to the living and the departed. (In fact, that initial use of the phrase as prophet was part of President Nelson’s introduction to the announcement of seven new temples, including the first temples for India and Russia.)
That image of people on both sides of the veil striving at once for the same goal has galvanized other church leaders and members. In fact, the phrase has risen sharply in usage during general conference talks, according to the LDS General Conference Corpus.
For example, Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, actually speaking a day before President Nelson in 2018, said, “God will strengthen, help and uphold us; and he will sanctify to us our deepest distress. When we gather our family histories and go to the temple on behalf of our ancestors, God fulfills many of these promised blessings simultaneously on both sides of the veil.”
Perhaps we will learn later the inspiration behind President Nelson’s use of the phrase. He did use a similar idea in a landmark 1994 conference talk on temple work called “The Spirit of Elijah,” when he said, “Many travel the highways of life without a companion. They, too, are needed by their families on both sides of the veil.”
It’s a message he now has repeated as prophet in the lobby of the Hyde Park Chapel at the start of his first global ministry, in sports stadiums in South America and throughout the pandemic.
And now we reach the start of a general conference for which he extended an invitation to church members to make a list of the Lord’s promises as part of the gathering of Israel.
