Question: Donny, While reading your "beliefs", I came upon the words "spiritual existence". Could you please explain this to me?
Response: Long before we came to this earth, we lived in the spirit world with God our Heavenly Father, who is the creator of our spirits. It was there that we learned our first lessons about things as they really are and about the great opportunity that would be ours to come to earth to grow and progress, to walk by faith, to keep his commandments and return to his presence, if we would just try and be faithful in all things to the end of our lives.
Even though our Heavenly Father believes in the great eternal principle of agency (the ability to choose for ourselves), he has provided us prophets and apostles throughout all recorded time to teach us, guide us, and remind us of his will and blessings. These prophets have prepared for us the Holy Scriptures which contain the commandments that we must live by in order to live the gospel of his son Jesus Christ and return to his presence.
Our spiritual pre-earthly existence with our Heavenly Father was no doubt a beautiful place to dwell, but because we did not possess physical bodies there, we would eventually be limited in our eternal progress. The reason that he sent us to this earth (without any recollection of our pre-earth life) was to allow us to grow, to progress and strive to become more like him through our faith. (see Matthew 5:48).
There is so much more that could be said, but this is the essence of it. You may want to spend time discussing this with some representatives of our church. They could explain so much more and in clearer detail than I can in this email. If you would like to do that, I'd be more than happy to arrange for someone to come to you. Once you've had an opportunity to hear and understand exactly what we believe and why, then you'll know whether this is worth pursuing. There are many great and wonderful truths to be learned. If you would like me to do this for you, please send me your address and phone number and I'll have them call on you. I look forward to hearing from you.
