Gospel Principles Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is entitled, "Our Heavenly Family." Family is such a basic unit of society. Joseph F. Smith teaches us, "Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body”(Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith [1998], 335). That makes us all brothers and sisters, spiritually anyway. Just like on Earth, we were all different in our pre-earth state. "A veil covers our memories of our premortal life, but our Father in Heaven knows who we are and what we did before we came here. He has chosen the time and place for each of us to be born so we can learn the lessons we personally need and do the most good with our individual talents and personalities" (Gospel Principles, 10). While we were in our premortal life, we sat down with Heavenly Father and we talked about what was going to happen to us. He told us that we would leave his presence, and we would come to this earth. We were also told that we would have to do some things in our lives to show our Heavenly Father that we really wanted to come back to live with him once more. We learned that we would go through trials, and if we allowed them to they would purify us rather than defeat us. "They would teach us to have endurance, patience, and charity" (Gospel Principles, 11). And finally, that last thing we learned is that we were all going to make mistakes by our nature, and that a Savior was going to be provided for us. He would overcome all things that needed to be overcome, namely death and sin. Jesus Christ was chosen at that time to be our Savior and Redeemer.