“The most glorious of all subjects…”

Enveloped in flaming fire, they [in the spirit world] are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith. Prophet Joseph Smith

Brigham Young Spirits, when they leave the bodies, do not pass out of the organization of this earth on which we live. It is right here. Do the good and evil spirits go together? Yes, they do.... Do they go to the sun? No. Do they go beyond the boundaries of this organized earth? No, they do not. They are brought forth upon this earth, for the express purpose of inhabiting it to all eternity. Where else are you going? Nowhere else, only as you are permitted.

I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separate from them. … We can not forget them; we do not cease to love them; we always hold them in our hearts, in memory, and thus we are associated and united to them by ties that we can not break, that we can not dissolve or free ourselves from. … those who have been faithful, who have gone beyond and are still engaged in the work for the salvation of the souls of men, … can see us better than we can see them; that they know us better than we know them. They have advanced; we are advancing; we are growing as they have grown; we are reaching the goal that they have attained unto; and therefore, I claim that we live in their presence, they see us, …they are solicitous for our welfare, they love us now more than ever. For now they see the dangers that beset us; they can comprehend, better than ever before, the weaknesses that are liable to mislead us into dark and forbidden paths… hence their solicitude for us, and their love for us, and their desire for our well being, must be greater than that which we feel for ourselves. Joseph F. Smith

John A. Widstoe In our preexistent state, in the day of the great council, we made a certain agreement with the Almighty. The Lord proposed a plan, conceived by him. We accepted it. Since the plan is intended for all men, we became parties to the salvation of every person under that plan. We agreed, right then and there, to be not only saviors for ourselves but measurably, saviors for the whole human family. We went into a partnership with the Lord. The working out of the plan became then not merely the Father’s work, and the Savior’s work, but also our work.

Sealings and Endowments

Brigham Young St. George, 1871 “What do you suppose the fathers would say if they could speak from the dead? Would they not say, ‘We have lain here thousands of years here in this prison house, waiting for this dispensation to come? Here we are, bound and fettered, in the association of those who are filthy? What would they whisper in our ears? Why, if they had the power the very thunders of heaven would be in our ears.”

The Steeple

Wilford Woodruff I will here say, before closing, that two weeks before I left St. George, the spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them. Said they: "You have had the use of the Endowment House for a number of years and yet nothing has ever been done for us. We laid the foundation of the government you now enjoy, and we never apostatized from it, but we remained true to it and were faithful to God." These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and they waited on me for two days and two nights. I thought it very singular that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them. The thought never entered my heart, from the fact, I suppose, that heretofore our minds were reaching after our more immediate friends and relatives.

The Problem… …when a member of the church comes under its influence, it is a powerful, compelling force which motivates him with a desire to be attending to genealogical and temple work. It leaves him anxious over the well-being of his forebears. When that spirit comes, somehow we desire to more about those forebears- we desire to know them. Boyd K. Packer “…the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link…between the fathers and the children.” (D&C 128:18)

James Talmage To me there is special significance in our assembling upon this [temple] block [for general conference], by the great temple that is consecrated mostly to the work of the dead… The temple-building spirit manifested among the Latter-day Saints is the spirit of absolute unselfishness; it is the Spirit of Elijah… We talk of independence. No man is independent. We are all interdependent; and we rise as we carry others with us, and as we are assisted by others.