A Letter To Our Grandchildren

Kirsten is a daughter of Heavenly Father - a member of His spiritual family.

She was created by our Heavenly Father and lived with Him, and us, as a spiritual being.

Heavenly Father is a glorified being of spirit and flesh and bone.

He wanted Kirsten to have a glorified body of flesh and bone also.

So he created the Earth for her, and us, where she could receive a physical body and experience a life of agency, or choice, away from our spiritual family.  A place where she, and us, could not remember the spiritual life - a place of testing.

Grandma and I prepared a physical body for Kirsten and after her spirit entered the physical body, she was born to this world thirty years ago.  I became her Earthly Father, and Grandma became her Earthly Mother.

Kirsten has two fathers, and so do we all - a Heavenly Father and an Earthly Father.

Kirsten, and all of us, came to Earth to learn obedience and faith.  That means to do what Heavenly Father wants us to do, without seeing Him or remembering our Spiritual Life, and believing in Him without physical proof that He exists.

After we have experienced this earthly life for a period of time, different lengths of time for each of us, Heavenly Father asks us to come back to Him.  So our spirits leave our physical bodies and we return to the spiritual existence.

That’s what Kirsten did last week.  We say she died, or passed away, but she is really alive in the Spirit World with other family members who have also gone to the Spirit World.  She was greeted by her grandparents.

Kirsten will be there to greet all of us in the family when we leave our bodies and return to Heavenly Father.

Jesus did something similar.  He died on the cross and three days later His spirit returned to His body and he resurrected.

Because he had the power to do that, he has given Kirsten, and all of us, the gift of the resurrection.  Some day we will all receive our glorified eternal bodies and will live forever.

Kirsten is alive and loves us.  We can’t see her or communicate with her now, but we will all be with her again.

One of the most wonderful gifts of Heavenly Father is the gift of making choices, either good choices or bad choices.

Sometimes we make wrong choices, but most of the time we make right choices.

Some wrong choices, like drugs, are more dangerous than others because they can take away our gift of choice and thereby control the way we think and act.

When Kirsten was a teenager she made a dangerous choice which caused many heartaches throughout the rest of her life and even her death.

Finally her Heavenly Father called her home where she can get special help and rest from her illness.

We are sad that we can’t see her and be with her but we are happy for her.   She is in a peaceful place.

How do you know what I said is true?

Because Heavenly Father has told us in the Scriptures.

Alma 40:11,12,22,23  “Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life. 12 And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. 22 Yea, this bringeth about the restoration of those things of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets. 23 The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame.”

My remarks at the Memorial Service, April 26, 2013