Quote:
Originally Posted by Mopac1980
Since my grandparents have passed away where would they be at right now? They are believers of of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and I do believe they have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour and they likely have repented from their sins, I would like to believe that my grandparents are enjoying their visit in Heaven with our Heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
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I'll take your question seriously, and respond in like manner.
I think most Christians accept that there is a 'ghost in the machine', a 'soul' or spirit inside our physical bodies. The spirit, like a hand inside a glove, animates the physical body and integrates all its myriad living parts. Without that spirit the physical body loses its ability to move and disintegrates.
Mormons believe that the spirit that animates our body came from God who created it in his image and likeness.
At the death of the physical body the spirit leaves and goes to a World of Spirits, the physical body goes to the grave and remains there disintegrating and decaying with no awareness until the resurrection.
Mormons believe that there are two divisions in that postmortal spirit world: Spirit Paradise, and Spirit Prison.
A temporary judgment is made by higher beings, ourselves, or God himself at death (I don't know which) and assignments are made to one or the other division of the spirit world. Assignments are based on the level of goodness or evil that we take with us from the choices we made during our mortal days on earth.
Within each of those two divisions of the spirit world, life continues similar to on earth, except we don't need to eat, comb our hair etc. because we once again are disembodied spirits, made in the image and likeness of God the Father.
Since the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the gap between those two spirit worlds has been bridged and messengers from paradise cross over and minister to those in prison.
Freedom to choose is an eternal principle, spirits in prison can still accept the gospel message they may never have heard on earth. When essential ordinances such as baptism that can only be done on earth take place by proxy in holy temples on earth, that spirit can choose to accept or reject the gospel and thus choose eternal progress or stagnation.
If they accept, they are ready to enter Paradise and my guess is that they are escorted over the bridge and live in a state of happiness and learning with their families and loved ones who made better choices during mortality.
The spirit world is just a temporary place where postmortal spirits await their resurrection. There's much more to the rest of the story...
www.mormon.org
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Jesus said to the thief on the cross:
"And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise." Luke 23: 43
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/luke/23/43#43
And yet three days later, after his resurrection, he admonished Mary not to touch him because he had not yet ascended to the place where God the Father dwells:
"Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." John 20: 17
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/john/20/17#17
(Jesus also affirms in that verse that we are his brothers and sisters, spirit children of the same Heavenly Parent.)
It is my understanding that during those three days Jesus (in the spirit) went not to heaven but to the temporary world of postmortal spirits awaiting their resurrection and there either preached to those who had died previously, or bridged the gap between the Paradise and the Spirit Prison portions of the spirit world so that missionaries could from that time on cross over and teach the Gospel to those in prison.
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
" 1 Peter 3: 18-20
http://scriptures.lds.org/en/1_pet/3/18-20#18
The essential earthly ordinance of baptism would be extended to all later via proxy baptisms in earthly temples where mortals would stand in for those who had died without baptism:
"Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?" 1 Corinthians 15: 29
1 Corinthians 15
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