FHE: The Spirit World

Life After Death: 6 Insights into the Spirit World

I don't know if this link will be functional indefinitely, but this is the article that we explored for Family Night tonight, after making homemade pizza.

This was an article from LDS Living, the author had attended a conference of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, which was comprised of all kinds of people from different faiths, professions and backgrounds.

"As impressive as this gathering was, what had a greater impact on me was that most of these people were generally familiar with Latter-day Saint beliefs about the afterlife. It made me realize that we possess unique, profound doctrines concerning the role of the spirit that perhaps we take for granted."

The author goes on to describe 6 principles of the afterlife that are unique to the LDS faith. I will describe the most poignant parts of them to me.

The LDS Understanding of the Afterlife Brings Consolation

The prophet Joseph Smith taught about the spirit world and called these things the "principles of consolation". The fact that death was so prevalent for the early Saints forced the need for many talks to be given on the matter and console the Saints who had lost loved ones. We are taught that our loved ones are alive, at peace, busy in doing the work, and have hope in Christ and the Atonement. We are consoled truly by this knowledge.

The Afterlife is a Place of Rest

The trials and sorrows we have on Earth are put to rest in the afterlife. We will be at peace. The words of the hymn Come Come Ye Saints are made more meaningful "And if we die before our journey's through, Happy Day! All is well." 

The Spirit World Is Right Here on Earth

We had a lesson on the Spirit World in Gospel Essentials a few weeks ago, and we touched on this doctrine a little bit, which I found out afterwards was totally new to Max. (I am always very happy when Max learns new things, because he often says he's tired of hearing the same things over and over) I grew up in the church, and yet I don't really remember ever hearing this principle. I think this principle is something that should be shouted from the rooftops. Our loved ones are not gone, nor are they distant. This is a unique principle in Christian religions, and so poignant. "The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “They are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith.” This last principle is a little saddening to me. How many times have my ancestors looked on me and been so saddened by my choices? How many times have I let them down? 

The Spirit World Will Be Familiar

I will explain this with quotes from the article. 

“That which is spiritual [is] in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual.” This important principle teaches us not only that we have within our earthly tabernacle an immortal spirit that generally looks like our bodies, but also that, to a large degree, the spirit world looks and is organized like the earthly world. 

Brigham Young taught, “When you are in the spirit world, everything there will appear as natural as things now do. Spirits will be as familiar with spirits in the spirit world—will converse, behold, and exercise every variety of communication one with another as familiarly and naturally as while here in tabernacles. There, as here, all things will be natural, and you will understand them as you now understand natural things.” 

This, to me, is another “principle of consolation.” Some may think that all spirits do in the spirit world is float around on clouds, playing harps. Others may think that the only thing that goes on there is missionary work. But we know that that isn’t true. We will be teaching and being taught, serving and being served—just like here. There we will converse, laugh and cry, and engage ourselves in meaningful and productive activities—just like here.

I included all of this, because I think it it just the most beautiful and wonderful thing. I have always been most upset about death not because of actual death, but because there is no much in Earthly life that I love. Knowing that the Spirit World is organized like Earth, that we will communicate, play, and love with one another is such a comfort and blessing to me.

The Atonement Covers Those in the Spirit World

"President Wilford Woodruff taught that the priesthood and offices we hold in this life go with us into the spirit world. We engage in the same types of service and ministry there that we use our priesthood for here."  The work continues.

 Elder Neal A. Maxwell made this interesting observation, “Though we miss the departed righteous so much here, hundreds may feel their touch [in the afterlife]. One day, those hundreds will thank the bereaved for gracefully forgoing the extended association with choice individuals here, in order that they could help hundreds there. In God’s ecology, talent and love are never wasted.” 

This quote and concept in particular has been a tremendous source of peace and joy to me. The more I hear this principle, the more I think about it, the surer I am of why my Father was taken when he was. He was so sick and weak here, unable to fully be himself and live up to his true potential. And I miss him, and regret deeply the things that we never got to do or say while on Earth together, I know that he is helping me so much from the other side. That he is spreading the gospel and being a missionary like he physically could not before. His work was to be done from the other side, and through God's perfect plan, it is. How many people are thanking him for his service right now, that he could not have completed if not for the way his life went? How many things has he done for me that I cannot even begin to imagine? Life is never wasted. Those who die young did not have wasted lives. Talent and love are never wasted.

We Will Obtain Inexpressible Glory in the Afterlife

Enhanced travel, enhanced communication, enhanced learning. We communicate not with speech, but spirit to spirit, perfectly, the way Heavenly Father communicates with us. True understanding and communication. Learning will not be by one channel, but will come as light from the sun, giving understanding about thousands of things, and our spirits will be able to understand it all perfectly. We will retain all information, and increasingly understand and retain more and more. How incredibly excited I am for these things. What a beautiful and amazing place it will be. 

"Our knowledge of what it will be like then and there helps us to know what we should be like here and now. Gospel insights about dying teach us a great deal about living"

Weird Weekend

I've been kind of in a funk this weekend, and I'm not quite sure why. I had really annoying experiences with people from the Simi Valley Buy Sell and Trade pages. I hate dealing with people I don't know, especially disrespectful people who don't come when they are supposed to and act difficult. I listed a blender and there was no interest, so a few days later I lowered price. And then there was interest. And the lady who got it was super flaky, but because I am not aggressive enough I didn't want to pass her and have her get mad, even though I could have got more money from someone else. Then she left a weird note saying "Please next time respect the price" but she left me the lowered price so I don't understand. So now I keep wondering if she left more money and I dropped it somewhere but that really doesn't seem likely, so I'm just confused. And even though it's fine, things that could have been different just really bother me, even about 5 dollars. But I have other things to sell, and hopefully I just forget about it. The two things I've sold were wedding presents, and it's now been a year since we got them, so at this point selling them for anything is better than nothing.

I just have been more and more aware of the fact that I almost definitely have obsessive compulsive disorder. And not the "I really like things a certain way, I'm so OCD lol!!!!" A major reason why I can't get anything done is because of obsessive thoughts. Trash for instance- the thought that even though I only throw away trash, something important might have somehow inexplicably gotten in the trash. And so I compulsively go through the garbage, sometimes 2 or 3 times. I have thoughts such as "I could have got 5 more dollars from selling this item", so I compulsively replay all scenarios involving the transaction in my head, over and over, and I think of all ways I could have done things differently. The most prominent problem is the wedding. Some thought of one of the various things that went wrong will pop in my head, and I will have to close my eyes and think of all the ways it could have been fixed, and what would have happened if it went differently. And how on Earth does that help? Well, I know it doesn't. And the fact that I can't stop, and that it causes me great discomfort every day and wastes so much of my time and energy makes it a real problem, and one that I definitely need to seek help for.

Speaking of help, I'm still not sure how that whole health insurance thing is going to work even when Max is off his 90 days and starts to get his benefits. His company only pays 100 dollars a month into a plan, which as far as I know we have to first pick ourselves. And anything that is that low a month is going to have really crappy coverage. Lori said I may be able to qualify for a plan under Covered California, but every experience I've had so far trying to deal with it has been crappy.

So Allure came out with their new Modest Spring line....

Beautiful Sabbath Day

I am so overjoyed right now. Max and I were able to attend our ward, and attend all 3 meetings. All without Max complaining. Which is a small miracle. :p I am so grateful for our ward and the love that we have already received. I have already been assigned a visiting teacher, and she has made definite plans to visit. I was able to see both Bro and Sis Labass, whom I admire greatly, and Bro LaBass said he will invite us to dinner soon. Our ward has already been such a vast and stark change from the way that church and wards have gone for us in the past, and I am so grateful. I know that Max was blessed with getting the job that he has, everything was so perfectly placed for his career, and for us a a family and for our families, that I know it was Heaven sent. And now the fact that we have been placed in this ward where we have been treated so kindly, and where Max has already felt comfortable enough to express his need for help to the Bishop, and now to the Elder's Quorum today.

I am also extremely impressed with my need to give service and Christ like love... to my husband. I am so hard on him, and so critical of him. and I see everyday just how selfish I am when it comes to caring for him and giving him relief. A talk was given on the song "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief", and though I have heard countless talks on service in my life, I was impressed with how much I am lacking. When we hear service we tend to think big, helping the homeless, stopping our cars to help people who are broken down on the side of the road. And really, as a woman, I feel very limited in that respect. I feel very vulnerable to the dangers of the world, and I am cautious about those types of service. And I realized, that there are countless things that I can do, however, if I don't start in my own home I will never be humble enough to see them. I see countless ways that I can help my husband, the one person that I will be bound to for eternity, and I do almost nothing. I ask and ask of him, and do almost nothing to serve him. And I want so very badly to change that. He has given me all I asked today, he went with me to church with a kind heart, and he actually seemed to enjoy himself. He said the words "I could get used to it". It's all my prayers and hopes coming true.

I will try my hardest to be a missionary to him, and to serve him with all of my heart and soul. Kindness is the key, and I want so badly to put that into action.

Anniversary Nov 2

My last post got so long that I gave up adding in the actual anniversary post. In the morning Max gave me my kind of present- our wedding DVD with his re-written vows. Not re-written as in different, but re-written because he left his vows in his rented jacket after our wedding and I was very sad. However, because he had watched the DVD so he could write down his vows, he didn't want to watch it on the day of. :p

He also wrote me a beautiful letter that made me all teary. It's strange, I've read everywhere that the first year of marriage is the hardest, and while it was happening I never thought that was accurate for us. But looking back, and kind of seeing the way that things are with us now, I feel like we have grown so much. However, it could be because Max isn't in school anymore, we're back in Simi with our families, have a beautiful place, and Max has a steady job and routine. We have date nights, we watch movies, we play games together. Max seems happier and happier as time goes on. And it's good.

I gave Max my card and present, (pictured below) and he seemed to really like it. I know he's not super into decoration things, but it's something meaningful to him. He said that he got me something else, but it hadn't come yet.

Max went to take a shower, and I went out to his car to write Happy Anniversary on it. Then I showered and we got cute. Max wanted to go out to breakfast, and we ended up going to Mimi's in T.O. and getting delicious muffins and such. We were talking about the anniversary gifts by year, and seeing how silly some of them were. Apparently the first year is paper because it symbolizes how your lives have weaved together in the first year like the threads of paper are weaved together.

We went to Albertsons before going home so we could get apple pie materials. After we got home Max got really tired, and he started acting weird. I left to go to Target and get materials for our anniversary photo shoot, so I got some chalk and chalkboard signs, and then I went to Party City and picked up my balloons. I brought them home and the other stuff, and I started talking about the photo shoot, and Max seemed like he was getting annoyed. We were also going to go to dinner in Westlake, and he started saying that he didn't want to go anymore, and that he was really tired and never gets a chance to rest from work. I understand that he's tired on the weekends and wants to rest, but it really bothered me because it was on our anniversary. I'm not very good at having plans change when I've already planned them out, but that didn't even bother me. However, Max said something that I took the wrong way, and I ended up really upset and we had a fight.

Honestly, all we had planned was to be together and make a cake, and we never actually discussed if we were going to take pictures. So really, no actual plans were changed. We decided to go out to dinner the next day because we had already gone to breakfast- and also because we really didn't need to break the Sabbath anymore. So we finally talked and things were okay, and we just sat together and watched Netflix. After awhile he did agree to go out and take a couple pictures with me and the balloons, and the little grass and tree area ended up being really pretty.

This is the present I got Max- lyrics by the Avett Brothers

We made our apple pie in the evening, and it was magical. It was so good. I tried to stick our cake topper on it, and it didn't work. But oh man that pie was delicious. I decided that making an apple pie together is going to be our anniversary tradition.

Oh yeah.

Halloween and Santa Barbara Zoo

I was realizing last night how bad I've been about my journal. And so much has been gog on to write about. I'm in between my seasonal jobs right now, Halloween was my last day at Party City. (Or at least I believe it was, because I never checked if I worked after that :p) My job as a Santa Photographer starts on Friday. I think it's just for family photos the first couple weeks, as it is much too early for Santa (I hope). So, I'm enjoying these few days to clean, cook, and set up the house a little bit more. Except right now I'm just watching Gilmore Girls in shorts and a sports bra, so I can't say I've made much progress.

It's easier waking up early now thanks to Max getting up and leaving so early for work. Also maybe because Daylight Savings Time just ended. I find that the hardest thing for me is waking up in the dark, and now that it gets lighter earlier it's easier to get up. Also the cats make so much noise in the blinds in the bay window that it's hard to stay asleep anyway. Little jerks. I stayed up for a bit after Max went to bed last night and it was really quiet and kind of dark and depressing. Maybe I'll start making more of an effort to go to bed when Max does and wake up with him too. 

This is not at all about my anniversary- so let me skip ahead. (Because I have pictures!)

So Halloween was my last day at Party City- I was scheduled 12-8, and ended up getting there at 1 because Max had the Time Warner guy come early to set up the internet. And he took forever. But he was really nice and really funny, and it was my last day so I really didn't care. I was watching Flight of the Conchords and he was commenting on how anyone who liked that show was cool in his book. And that my hair reminded him of Mel's hair. That was also because I had diffused my hair all big and put on a lot of make up so I could dress up as a cat at work. And I did try to draw whiskers on so I wasn't just wearing cat ears, but it didn't work. Halloween was pretty fun, it was busy and interesting to see a lot of people come in in costume, and then around 6 it just totally got dead. But a few different people came in and ordered massive balloon orders for Halloween night, none of which had anything to do with Halloween. It was weird. I came home after work and tried to trick-or-treat for kisses, but Max thought I was actually a trick-or-treater and didn't come to the door. What a goob. I tried to get Max to dress up as Batman to go to Chipotle, but he said he looked stupid and wouldn't do it. We did go to Chipotle though and waited in a huge line. I was Catwoman. And we watched Monsters University and ate Halloween candy (that I bought from Party City) at home. It started raining really hard while we were eating, and we went to bed at like 10 because we were tired, and our pumpkins still aren't carved. It was a good Halloween though.

Wow, this is still not anniversary related at all.

Saturday! The 1st of November!!! It was still cloudy and a bit drizzly on and off when we woke up. We had planned to go to the zoo, but I was worried that the animals would be hiding if it was raining. Max convinced me to go and we had such a good time. The zoo wasn't crowded at all, and the animals were all out. I got to feed a giraffe! It was fun. They have long blue tongues that grab the food you give them. 

We went to eat lunch and all of the sudden it started pouring. But it stopped after a while, and we went back to see what the animals were doing. The otters were out playing and squeaking, and I got really good pictures of them. 

We went to see the rest of the zoo, and it went in and out of being rainy. We went to see the gorillas, and they were being really active and interesting, except there was some really rude people in the way, and I couldn't get any pictures. But a really awesome thing happened, where the snow leopards were walking around all wet and pathetically in their cage. One of them kept kicking a mud puddle like an idiot. However, I was able to get this shot- shown in black and white and color because I couldn't decide which I liked better.

We saw some of the other animals again too. And my telephoto lens (and Lightroom) is the bestest thing ever for zoos.

:) :) :)

We came back from the zoo and went to BJ's with Max's family to celebrate AJ's birthday. It was nice!

Oct 28 Update

So humans, cats, guinea pigs, and fish are all officially moved in. There's still so many boxes... a lot of them are just my junk though. The kitchen is basically done, except for some odds and ends that are misplaced. I'm just over it. I'm still missing my bra- my only expensive nice bra. But I think it was missing before we moved. Max is missing his I-Pod too. I don't know what else is missing, and that makes me really anxious.

I got an e-mail yesterday from my German professor. I got dropped from my class from from missing too many days. And I'm upset- but not as upset as I should be- because I'm almost grateful. We don't have internet here, so I couldn't do my homework anyway. And I have work until midnight tonight, so I really doubt that I would have gone to my class tomorrow either. I'm so behind in my classwork anyway from moving, and then I work until 11 or 12 usually on Sunday on Tuesday the night before class.

I just have to make a much bigger effort next semester. I am sincerely hoping that having more than one class will help me be more motivated to keep the momentum. I just need to get into school mode again, I used to be really really good at it, and then I got burned out in Long Beach and I've been on the decline since then. I did really well in my 2 photo classes at RCC though, and maybe when I start taking more photo classes next semester that enjoyment will carry me through the rest of the boring awful classes. Or maybe I'll just put all of those classes off until the last second at CSUN, and just take photo and art and German next semester (which I will now ace because half of the class will be review).