The Plan of Salvation

Your life did not begin at birth, nor will it end at death. You are made up of a spirit body (sometimes called the soul) and a physical body. Your Heavenly Father created your spirit, and you lived with Him as a spirit before you were born on earth (1). You knew and loved Him, and He knew and loved you (2). This period is called pre-earth life or a "preexistence."

Throughout your pre-earth life, you were taught the principles and commandments that would lead to happiness. You grew in intelligence and learned to love the truth. You were taught about the plan of salvation. During this pre-earth life, Jesus Christ was chosen as the Savior; you learned that through Him you would be able to overcome the effects of your wrong choices.

An important part of God's plan was for you to come to earth to receive a physical body and to learn to make correct choices. You would not remember living in Heavenly Father's presence, but He would give you the ability to know right from wrong. You would be able to recognize His love and truth. Through your experiences and trials, you could learn to make right choices consistently. With the help of Jesus Christ, you would be able to return to live with your Heavenly Father when your life on earth was over.

In your pre-earth life, you learned that only by choosing to follow God's plan could you receive lasting peace and satisfaction in this life and for eternity. Because He loves you, your Heavenly Father gave you agency, or the power to make choices. He let you choose whether you would follow His plan and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Satan, one of God's spirit children, rebelled against our Heavenly Father and did not accept His plan. He wanted to force us all to do his will. Sadly, many of our Heavenly Father's children chose to follow Satan. Satan and his followers were sent away from God's presence and were not allowed to be born on earth. They continue to exist as spirits. They are miserable, and they want you to be miserable. They tempt you and all God's children to do things that bring unhappiness and that are not pleasing to God.

In the pre-earth life, you chose to have faith in Jesus Christ and to follow God's plan. Because of your choices, you were born on earth. Only by making these same choices can you find peace in this life and be able to return to live with your Heavenly Father after this life is over.

Although your memory of your preexistence is withheld, before you came to this earth you lived in the presence of God, your Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ. You shouted for joy when given the privilege of coming to this earth to receive a body and to follow God's plan for your happiness.

Much of the information given to mankind in the history of this earth, is through a past and living Prophet. Knowledge, or Faith, in this concept is very important. Understanding that the Lord loves his people today, by giving us a voice from God, as much as in Old and New Testament days, can give us many answers to our questions, again, "Where did I come from?" "Why am I here?" or "Where am I going after this life is over?"

It is because of revelations by modern Prophets that many of these questions can be answered.

A modern Prophet, Joseph Smith, learned for himself that God is not merely a spirit, but has a body that is tangible, like man’s, though it is glorified and perfected. When praying for an answer to a question about which church he should join, Joseph Smith was visited by God the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ.(5) When Joseph saw and talked with them, he learned that the Father and Son, Jesus Christ, are separate and distinct individuals (6) and not just manifestations of the same person.(7) He learned that they each have a body of flesh and bones.(8) Their bodies are much like ours, but are glorified and perfected, and they can’t die.

As his spirit children, we could see in our premortal existence that our Heavenly Father had a glorified body of flesh and bones, which was necessary to progress eternally. We really wanted to be like our Father in Heaven.(9) Because of his great love for us, he prepared a way for us to obtain physical bodies like his.(10) This plan (11) required that we obtain these physical bodies by coming to this earth to live. This earth life is one of the first steps toward reaching eternal perfection.(12) Just as our earthly mothers and fathers want us to experience and learn life’s lessons as we grow older, our Heavenly Father wants us to become more like him. An interesting scripture: Jeremiah 1:5 (Old Testament)