Day 207

  • Principle: Your soul will go to the spirit world between death and resurrection.
  • Book of Mormon Reading: Alma 40:11 - 40:26
    • Joseph Fielding Smith taught of the spirits being brought back to God’s presence:
      • “These words of Alma [40:11] as I understand them, do not intend to convey the thought that all spirits go back into the presence of God for an assignment to a place of peace or a place of punishment and before him receive their individual sentence. ‘Taken home to God’ [compare Ecclesiastes 12:7] simply means that their mortal existence has come to an end, and they have returned to the world of spirits, where they are assigned to a place according to their works with the just or with the unjust, there to await the resurrection. ‘Back to God’ is a phrase which finds an equivalent in many other well known conditions. For instance: a man spends a stated time in some foreign mission field. When he is released and returns to the United States, he may say, ‘It is wonderful to be back home’; yet his home may be somewhere in Utah or Idaho or some other part of the West” (Answers to Gospel Questions, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., 5 vols. [1957–66], 2:85).
  • Today you will study the words of modern day prophets and church leaders from the most recent general conference.
    • Go to the General Conference section of LDS.org
    • Select a talk you have not recently studied
    • Use the following guidelines as you study the general conference message
  • General Conference Study Guide (Adapted from LDS.org General Conference Study Ideas)
    • Listen and record
      • As you are studying the general conference talk pay attention to additional teachings from the Spirit.  Follow Richard G. Scott's direction from October 2009 talk titled "To Acquire Spiritual Guidance" and after feeling prompted by the spirit as "Is there more I should know?"
      • Take time to record your thought and impressions.
    • Ask questions and look for answers
      • What questions come to mind about the topic discussed?
      • If you could ask the speaker one question what would be be?
      • If the answers don't jump out from the talk search LDS.org for additional study material.
    • Invitations
      • Have the speakers invited you to do something?  What is the invitation?  How can you diligently fulfill the invitation?  What are the promised blessings with the given invitation?
    • Look for . . .
      • Look for Jesus Christ
      • Look for doctrines or principles
      • Look for blessings
      • Look for words or phrases that uplift and encourage
  • If you are desiring additional insight, prepare a lesson for Family Home Evening based on the message you have studied.
  • Additional Study:
    • Russell M. Nelson, “Doors of Death”, April 1992
    • Come, Ye Disconsolate, Hymns No. 115
    • Roll Your Hands, Children’s Songbook No. 274