March 1, 2002 (blogged May 1, 2014)
From: Dad, Grandpa Pratt etc. Richard M. Pratt
Re: Earth Life
In February’s memo I wrote about our pre-mortal life. How our eternal individuality, called intelligence was fused with a spirit body in a spirit birth to our Heavenly Parents. There we must have spent eons of time as the billions of spirits who would be sent to this earth were born and all of us were taught and experienced all that that stage of existence could furnish.
In as much as this took place in the home of the parents of our spirits and in as much as they live in HEAVEN and in as much as the goal of all true Christians is to return to Heaven and as we were already there THEN WHY DID WE EVER LEAVE TO COME TO THIS WORLD OF VIOLENCE, TRIALS, TEARS AND GRIEF AND ENDING IN THE TRAUMA CALLED DEATH???
The word “Heaven” is actually a loose and nebulous word and means many things to many people and most of their ideas are just not true. Some actually believe and I've had them tell me this, that heaven is where our Lord lives in a beautiful city with streets paved of pure gold. That those few of this world who make it back to there will be angels (and they can’t define angel except that it will be a sexless it!) And forevermore these “its” will walk the golden streets strumming on their golden guitars and singing praises to God forever and ever. How Boring! Especially to God!! And to those of us who are not musical!
The Heaven, as is easily observed, is composed of countless planets, stars, suns etc. they are divided into at least three orders or ranks named Celestial, Terrestrial and Telestial. God lives on a Celestial Planet which is the highest of all. (I’ll consider the other two in a future memo.) There are innumerable Celestial Planets and Gods but we only have a few details on the one our God dwells on. Most of these details were given by God in a face to face conversation with Moses who lived on the earth about 1500 B.C.
Among other things God told Moses that his creations cannot be counted by man. But he knows them all. That the Celestial globe he lives on was once an earth like ours and our earth is destined to become a Celestial globe after it passes thru some mighty changes.
Before it reaches the Celestial stage, all the spirits foreordained to live on this earth will have the privilege of doing so. The earth will then be Celestialized and join that rank of heavenly bodies and will be in the presence of God. Then will the Saviors statement in the “Sermon on the Mount” be fulfilled, when he said, “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” (The word meek at the translation of the Bible 400 years ago didn’t mean a milksop as it does today but it meant a strong, bold person who stood for truth and above all OBEYED GOD!)
Heaven, then, to the inhabitants of this earth, is to be prepared for by obedience to be numbered among those who will be judged fit candidates to inherit a portion of this Celestialized Planet. All others will go to inferior ranks or orders of Heavenly satellites. (There are numberless scriptures on this subject, just believe me.)
In February’s memo I quoted the Lord in the book of Job wherein he states that when this earth and its purposes were explained to us that we literally shouted for joy. There are many reasons why we were so happy to leave our Heavenly Home for this inferior world. I’ll only have room to mention the first four or five and most important ones.
#1 Our spirit body was not complete. We could easily see some of the great advantages our Heavenly Parents enjoyed in their RESURRECTED bodies, and like all children we longed to be like them. To achieve this we had to follow in their footsteps. We had to begin with a temporal
(temporary) body of flesh and blood that could only be acquired on a temporal earth. Further progress was closed to us until we lowered ourselves to a physical world where bodies of temporal material were available. And when we obtained these bodies we had to learn the laws by which the materials of these bodies could be controlled.
#2 This was the course the Lord said we had to follow in order to attain “A FULNESS OF JOY,” like unto his. one writer has said: “For centuries men have tried to find this fulness of joy by artificial and Satanical means by resorting to alcohol, drugs of various kinds and some to physical dissipation, but all of these are counter productive and lead to early death.”
However, a fulness of joy can only be attained when our bodies have been resurrected and are inseparably connected with our spirits forever.
“Spirit and physical, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy. Our spirits, when alone, are for some reason incapable of enjoying this experience in its fulness.”
Mortality is the gateway thru which man had to pass to attain the maximum of happiness.
“They are they into whose hands the Father has given all things---they are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his FULNESS, and of his glory...wherefore they become Gods, even the Sons and Daughters of God, wherefore all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christs, and Christ is Gods.”
D&C 131:1-4
#3 Spirits cannot form families and have children. They do not have the power to do so. They are as small children in this respect. Only at this late stage of our development when we have become potential candidates for a place in the council of the Gods are we permitted to partake of these powers. Parenthood upon this earth is but a training period for parenthood in eternity.
The vast majority of those who live upon this earth and enjoy the TEMPORARY power of procreation, by disobedience, will lose this power and will literally be resurrected without it. They will be angels and not Gods and will be servants to the Gods eternally, for by their own actions of not listening to and obeying God, they will not have this power restored to them in the resurrection.
This life, then, is our time to form eternal family ties and start our own kingdom in obedience to the laws of that kingdom, even the Celestial Kingdom of God.
Grandma and I have obeyed these laws and I have every expectation of soon being with her and continuing our ROMANCE ETERNALLY.
#4 This life is a testing to see what we will do while away from home. One third of our brothers and sisters led by Lucifer refused this exciting adventure and rebelled and were cast out of heaven and placed on the earth without any hopes of ever having the 4 blessings itemized above.
#5 Earth life is an experiencing of good and evil. Every good thing has its’ evil opposite. Here we have a choice to choose and learn by our own trial and error to know that good choices always bring good results and evil choices evil results. Thru this pain and sorrow we MAY LEARN. Thru these experiences we learn the bitterness of disobedience (sin) and the sweetness of obedience. Here we may learn that God’s way is the safe, proven, reliable way. Indeed there is no other way. Eventually either here or in the world of the dead, called the spirit world and before the resurrection, every soul will learn that there is no other way than God’s way. But for most it will be to late to receive “ALL THAT GOD HAS TO GIVE.”
The solution: “Do it NOW!” Learn of Christ and His Father and Our Father and how to be able to receive ALL that they have to give.
I love you,
Dad, Grandpa etc.
A Note from Rose:
I have been posting just the spiritual memos. If you kept your hard copies it would be fun to re read the stories Dad put out. Your kids will get a big kick out of them. We all grew up to Dad's wonderful stories and it's fun to keep them going.
A Note from Rose:
I have been posting just the spiritual memos. If you kept your hard copies it would be fun to re read the stories Dad put out. Your kids will get a big kick out of them. We all grew up to Dad's wonderful stories and it's fun to keep them going.
love to you all,
Rose
