More on "Beginnings"!

      We answered the question of who we are last week. This week we will learn more about that as we answer question #2 Where did we come from? 

     Before this earth was created, every person who has lived on this earth, is living on this earth, or will live on this earth, lived in what we call the Pre-earth life. We lived as spirit children of our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. Just as children here on earth need to learn and progress, we had the opportunity as spirits to learn and progress there. We could see that our Heavenly Parents were different from us in that they had physical bodies of flesh and bone. However, their bodies were glorified, perfect and immortal because they had already earned the right to become Gods. And that goes along with the fact that they wanted us to have that same opportunity; just as all good parents here want their children to grow up to be good responsbile adults. We had reached a stage in our spiritual development that was about as high as we could achieve and so our Heavenly Father called a big family meeting. 

     At our big family meeting our Heavenly Father explained that He would create a world for us to live on. In this world we would be born with mortal bodies. We would have to learn how to use these bodies, and hopefully, do so in a way that would allow them to learn and grow and become like our Heavenly Parents.  But He also warned us that there would be things that are not good for us. We would have to use our agency (our right to choose; something we had always had) to make those choices, many of which would bring us closer to Him and others that would pull us away from Him. But He assured us that even though we made wrong choices we would be given help to overcome them and have them erased from our lives. This is called repentance. And this repentance would only work because of a Savior that would be willing to suffer, on our behalf, for all the wrong choices we make.  Part of the reason for this meeting was to choose a Savior. When our Heavenly Father asked for volunteers (He never forces anyone; it is always a choice.) there were two, that we know of:  One was our brother, Lucifer, who said he would go down to earth and force everyone to obey the laws and commandments. But when he was done he wanted all of God's glory and power given to him. The other brother who volunteered was Jesus Christ, our oldest brother. He said He would go down and take our sins upon Him and suffer for them so that we could still have agency to choose right from wrong, but through His atoning sacrifice we would be able to be forgiven, cleansed and become  worthy to return to our Heavenly Parents.

     Jesus' plan was chosen and Lucifer, using his agency, rebelled against it and was able to convince one third of our brothers and sisters to follow him. When the conflict ended there were consequences to be faced. All would come to this earth, but Lucifer and his followers would never be given physical bodies. They wander upon this earth as spirits and do all they can to get us to not follow the clear path Jesus shows those of us who chose the Father's plan and DID receive physical bodies. Lucifer or Satan or the devil, as he is more readily known, will do all he can to derail us and even possess our physical bodies. BUT because we HAVE physical bodies we are stronger than he and his followers. They cannot harm us in any way without our permission. 

     The three purposes of this earth life as presented to us in this meeting were #1- to get physical bodies; #2- to learn to live by faith, and # 3 to prove to our Heavenly Parents that we will do all we can in order to return and live with them! (More on these next week!)