What Happens When We Die? What We Know about the Spirit World

Joseph F. Smith.  If we can see, by the enlightening influence of the Spirit of God and through the words that have been spoken by the holy prophets of God, beyond the veil that separates us from the spirit world, surely those who have passed beyond, can see more clearly through the veil back here to us than it is possible for us to see to them from our sphere of action. I believe we move and have our being in the presence of heavenly messengers and of heavenly beings. We are not separated from them. We begin to realize more and more fully, as we become acquainted with the principles of the gospel, as they have been revealed anew in this dispensation, that we are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors, to our friends and associates and co-laborers who have preceded us into the spirit world. We cannot 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 cannot break, that we cannot dissolve or free ourselves from. If this is the case with us in our finite condition, surrounded by our mortal weaknesses, shortsightedness, lack of inspiration and wisdom, from time to time, how much more certain it is, and reasonable and consistent, to believe that those who have been faithful, who have gone beyond, are still engaged in the work for the salvation of the souls of men, in the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound and proclaiming liberty to the captives, who 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. They see the temptations and the evils that beset us in life, and the proneness of mortal beings to yield to temptation and to wrong doing; 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, Gospel Doctrine, 430). 

Gordon B. Hinckley.  To lose [a] much-loved [family member]  with whom one has long walked through sunshine and shadow is absolutely devastating. There is a consuming loneliness which increases in intensity.  It painfully gnaws at one’s very soul.  But in the quiet of the night a silent whisper is heard that says, “All is well.  All is well.”  And that voice from out of the unknown brings peace, certainty, and unwavering assurance that death is not the end, that life goes on, with work to do and victories to be gained.  That voice quietly, even unheard with mortal ears, brings the assurance that as surely as there has been separation, there will be a joyful reuniting.  And so with that firm assurance you will go on.  There will be days of loneliness and nights of longing, but the sunlight of faith will shine again and the fires of love will warm you (Gordon B. Hinckley, Funeral Service for Neal A. Maxwell, 27 July 2004).

Ella Jensen.  I  could see people from the other world and hear the most delightful music and singing that I ever heard. This singing lasted for six hours, during which time I was preparing to leave this earth, and I could hear it all through the house. . . .Everybody appeared to be perfectly happy. I was having a very pleasant visit with each one that I knew. Finally. . .I opened a door and went into another room filled with children. They were all arranged in perfect order, the smallest ones first, then larger ones, according to age and size, the largest ones in the back rows all around the room. They seemed to be convened in a sort of Primary or Sunday School presided over by Aunt Eliza R. Snow. There were hundreds of small children. . . .all dressed in white. . . .[I] sat and listened to the Sunday School songs which they sang, being songs which are now sung in Sunday Schools among us, and. . .was perfectly contented and happy. It was a heavenly place. . . .[I] felt that [I] never wanted to leave it. . . .Everyone appeared busy and very happy (Leroi C. Snow in “Raised From the Dead,” Improvement Era, 32, September 1929, no pages given).

D&C 130:2.  The same sociality we experience here will continue in the spirit world, only it will be coupled with glory.

Jedediah M. Grant.  When in the spirit world, I saw the order of righteous men and women; beheld them organized in their several grades, and there appeared to be no obstruction to my vision; I could see every man and woman in their grade and order. I looked to see whether there was any disorder there, but there was none; neither could I see any death nor any darkness, disorder or confusion." He said that the people he there saw were organized in family capacities; and when he looked at them he saw grade after grade and all were organized and in perfect harmony. . . .He saw the righteous gathered together in the spirit world, and there were no wicked spirits among them. He saw his wife; she was the first person that came to him. He saw many that he knew, but did not have conversation with any except his wife, Caroline. She came to him, and he said that she looked beautiful and had their little child, that died on the Plains, in her arms, and said, "Mr. Grant, here is little Margaret; you know that the wolves ate her up, but it did not hurt her; here she is all right.". . . "To my astonishment," he said, "when I looked at families there was a deficiency in some, there was a lack, for I saw families that would not be permitted to come and dwell together, because they had not honored their calling here" (As reported by Heber C. Kimball,  (JD, 4:135-37).

Ezra Taft Benson.  On the other side of the veil, the righteous are taught their duties preparatory to the time when they will return with the Son of Man to earth when He comes again, this time to judge every man according to his works. These righteous spirits are close by us. They are organized according to priesthood order in family organizations as we are here; only there they exist in a more perfect order. This was revealed to the Prophet Joseph (Teachings, 35-36).

Joseph F. Smith.  Now, among all these millions of spirits that have lived on the earth and have passed away, from generation to generation, since the beginning of the world, without the knowledge of the gospel–among them you may count that at least one-half are women. Who is going to preach the gospel to the women? Who is going to carry the testimony of Jesus Christ to the hearts of the women who have passed away without a knowledge of the gospel?  Well, to my mind, it is a simple thing. These good sisters who have been set apart, ordained to the work, called to it, authorized by the authority of the holy Priesthood to minister for their sex, in the House of God for the living and for the dead, will be fully authorized and empowered to preach the gospel and minister to the women while the elders and prophets are preaching it to the men. . . .Some of you will understand when I tell you that some of these good women who have passed beyond have actually been anointed queens and priestesses unto God and unto their husbands, to continue their work and to be the mothers of spirits in the world to come. The world does not understand this-they cannot receive it-they do not know what it means, and it is sometimes hard for those who ought to be thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the gospel-even for some of us, to comprehend, but it is true (Gospel Doctrine, 461).

Joseph F. Smith.  The righteous spirit that departs from this earth is assigned its place in the Paradise of God; it has its privileges and honors which are in point of excellency, far above and beyond human comprehension; and in this sphere of action, enjoying this partial reward for its righteous conduct on the earth, it continues its labors, and in this respect is very different from the state of the body from which it is released.  For while the body sleeps and decays, the spirit receives a new birth; to it the portals of life are opened. It is born again into the presence of God. . . .to enter a state of joy, glory and exaltation; not a fulness of any one of them but to await the morning of the resurrection of the just, to come forth from the grave to redeem the body, and to be reunited with it and thus become a living soul, an immortal being, never more to die (Gospel Doctrine, 440).

Harold B. Lee.  To those who are righteous, [the spirit world] will be a paradise. There they will rest from all their earthly labors, and there shall be peace and harmony, joy and love, all described by a great Book of Mormon prophet. But to those who die in their wicked state, not having repented, the scriptures say the devil shall seal them as his own (see Alma 34:35), which means that until they have paid the uttermost farthing for what they have done, they shall not be redeemed from his grasp. When they shall have been subjected to the buffetings of Satan sufficient to have satisfied justice, then they shall be brought forth out of the grasp of Satan and shall be assigned to that place in our Father's celestial, terrestrial, or telestial world merited by their life here upon this earth (Teachings, 59).

Joseph Fielding Smith.  All spirits of men after death return to the spirit world. There, as I understand it, the righteous–meaning those who have been baptized and who have been faithful–are gathered in one part and all the others in another part of the spirit world. This seems to be true from the vision given to President Joseph F. Smith. . . . The righteous may now go among the other spirits, and there the gospel is being taught, but the spirits barred from the association of the righteous cannot go where the righteous are.  According to the story of Lazarus and the rich man, there was a gulf which separated the righteous from the unrighteous (which included all the spirits not baptized), and neither class could pass into the other until the Savior bridged the gulf, so those holding the priesthood then could cross over to teach the others (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2.230).

Brigham Young.  We have more friends behind the veil than on this side, and they will hail us more joyfully than you were ever welcomed by your parents and friends in this world; and you will rejoice more when you meet them than you ever rejoiced to see a friend in this life; and then we shall go on from step to step, from rejoicing to rejoicing, and from one intelligence and power to another, our happiness becoming more and more exquisite and sensible as we proceed in the words and powers of life ( Brigham Young, Discourses, 379-80).

Melvin J. Ballard.  You mothers worry about your little children. We do not perform sealings for them. I lost a son six years of age, and I saw him a man in the spirit world after his death, and I saw how he had exercised his own freedom of choice and would obtain of his own will and volition a companionship, and in due time to him, and all those who are worthy of it, shall come all of the blessings and sealing privileges of the house of the Lord (Sermons, 260)

Joseph Smith.  The spirits of the just are exalted to a greater and more glorious work; hence they are blessed in their departure to the world of spirits. Enveloped in flaming fire, they are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith (Teachings, 326).    

Joseph F. Smith.  We are told by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that "there are no angels who minister to this earth but those who do belong or have belonged to it." Hence, when messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our kindred, friends, and fellow-beings and fellow-servants (Gospel Doctrine, 435).

Those in the Spirit World Anxiously Await their Temple Work done

President Howard W. Hunter, A Temple Motivated People, 1995

The dead are anxiously waiting for the Latter-day Saints to search out their names and then go into the temples to officiate in their behalf, that they may be liberated from their prison house in the spirit world. All of us should find joy in this magnificent labor of love.

Elder Henry B. Eyring, “Hearts Bound Together,” April 2005

 . . . Wilford Woodruff said while he lived that he believed few, if any, of the ancestors of the Latter-day Saints in the spirit world would choose to reject the message of salvation when they heard it.  (“Discourse by President Wilford Woodruff,” Millennial Star, May 21, 1894, 339-40.)

Sister Wendy Nelson, “Open the Heavens through Temple and Family History Work”, Ensign October 2017

President George Q. Cannon (1827–1901), who served as a counselor to four Presidents of the Church, taught that in these latter days, those who are joining the Church are joining precisely because their ancestors have been praying for one of their posterity to join the Church so that they, the ancestors, can receive their essential ordinances by proxy. (Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon, comp. Jerreld L. Newquist, 2 vols. (1974), 2:88–89.)

President Nelson shares hopes, counsel at 2018 New Mission Leadership Seminar

A missionary’s best friends in the local unit are the ward or branch mission leader and the ward or branch temple and family history consultant, he added. The former helps missionaries get more meaningful teaching opportunities, and the latter to help people new to the Church to learn names of ancestors, “many of whom are yearning — even desperate — for the exalting ordinances of the gospel to be done for them by their living posterity.”

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) taught about the anticipation of many in the spirit world who desire to receive gospel ordinances:

“The spirit world is full of spirits who are anxiously awaiting for us to perform these earthly ordinances for them. …

“Some of us have had occasion to wait for someone or something for a minute, an hour, a day, a week, or even a year. Can you imagine how our progenitors must feel, some of whom have perhaps been waiting for decades and even centuries for the temple work to be done for them?” (“The Things of Eternity—Stand We in Jeopardy?” Ensign, Jan. 1977, 1, 7).

Introduction to Family History Student Manual - Angels Need Our Help. 

At the dedication of the lower story of the St. George Utah Temple on January 1, 1877, President Brigham Young indicated that some in the spirit world have waited thousands of years for their temple work to be done: “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?’ … What would they whisper in our ears? Why, if they had the power the very thunders of heaven would be in our ears, if we could realize the importance of the work we are engaged in. All the angels in heaven are looking at this little handful of people, and stimulating them to the salvation of the human family” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 309).

Temple & Family History Work: Ministering of Angels and How Close are our Family and Ancestors who Have Died?

We have experienced the loss of my father-in-law, and more recently our 3 year-old granddaughter and my mother. I know they are not gone, but are in the Spirit World. These quotes bring a great deal of comfort and happiness.

Sister Rosemary M. Wixom, quoting Joseph Smith, "Temples, Taproots, and Family Trees," Ensign, Feb. 2017.
“They are not far from us, and know and understand our thoughts, feelings, and motions, and are often pained therewith.”

Joseph F. Smith, in Conference Report, April 1916, 2–3

“Sometimes the Lord expands our vision from this point of view and this side of the veil, that we feel and seem to realize that we can look beyond the thin veil which separates us from that other sphere. . . . [And we would understand that] those who have passed beyond, can see more clearly through the veil back here to us than it is possible for us to see them from our sphere of action.

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 begin to realize more and more fully, as we become acquainted with the principles of the Gospel, as they have been revealed anew in this dispensation, that we are closely related to our kindred, to our ancestors, to our friends and associates and co-laborers who have preceded us into the spirit world. We can not forget them; we do not cease to love them; we always hold them in our hearts, in memory, and thus are associated and united to them by ties that we cannot break, that we cannot dissolve or free ourselves from.

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. They see the temptations and evils that beset us in life and the proneness of mortal beings to yield to temptation and wrong doing; 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, Gospel Doctrine, 435–36

“When messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from the ranks of our kindred [and] friends. . . . In like manner, our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given to them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, The Ministry of Angels, October 2008
From the beginning down through the dispensations, God has used angels as His emissaries in conveying love and concern for His children.

Usually such beings are not seen. Sometimes they are. But seen or unseen they are always near. Sometimes their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole world. Sometimes the messages are more private. Occasionally the angelic purpose is to warn. But most often it is to comfort, to provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times.

I testify that angels are still sent to help us, As Mormon said to his son Moroni, who would one day be an angel:

“Has the day of miracles ceased?

“Or have angels ceased to appear unto the children of men? Or has he withheld the power of the Holy Ghost from them? Or will he, so long as time shall last, or the earth shall stand, or there shall be one man upon the face thereof to be saved?

“Behold I say unto you, Nay; for … it is by faith that angels appear and minister unto men. …

“For behold, they are subject unto [Christ], to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness.”9

I ask everyone within the sound of my voice to take heart, be filled with faith, and remember the Lord has said He “would fight [our] battles, [our] children’s battles, and [the battles of our] children’s children.” And what do we do to merit such a defense? We are to “search diligently, pray always, and be believing[. Then] all things shall work together for [our] good, if [we] walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith [we] have covenanted.”


President Nelson, The 2020 Mission Leadership Seminar
“Many of these experiences are not captured in the scriptures, but various accounts indicate that Joseph saw in vision or was visited by approximately 60 angels during his lifetime,” said President Nelson. “Each came as directed by the Lord for various purposes.

President Nelson told the mission leaders that “angels will also surround, prompt, protect, and accompany you.”


Beyond the knowledge obtained over the course of his many heavenly visits, Joseph also “found strength in his intimate association with those beyond the veil,” he said. “When Joseph was repeatedly betrayed by close associates or falsely accused or unjustly imprisoned, he was never alone. He trusted in the Lord and relied on familiar ‘divers angels’ he had come to know over many years.”

In the same manner, “you will never be left alone,” said President Nelson to the leaders. “The Prophet Joseph’s experience can also be your experience, as you seek for — and prepare yourself to receive— heaven’s help. I promise you that this is true.


“I leave you with my witness of the divine calling of the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was foreordained and divinely tutored to inaugurate the Restoration. That Restoration continues to unfold in our day.”

Elder Russell M. Ballard:
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2019-12-22/lds-hasen-family-plane-crash-idaho-funeral-170586

President Ballard shared “wonderful insight” regarding the Resurrection written by President Joseph F. Smith, who lost his own father, Hyrum, when he was five, and his mother when he was 13. During the course of his life, President Smith lost 16 of his own children and grandchildren.

In the April 1916 general conference, the Church’s sixth president — President Ballard’s own great-grandfather — spoke of the thin veil separating the living and those in the spirit world. The principles of the gospel reveal that the connections binding family members and friends do not end with the passage of mortality.

“I claim that we live in their presence,” said President Smith. “They see us. They are solicitous of our welfare. They love us now more than ever. 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.”

The Hansens are enduring a great family tragedy, said President Ballard. But the sacred, living connection that binds the Hansen family remains.

“You will feel their presence,” he told Sister Hansen and her family. “There will be times when you will sense that they are watching over you. Don’t resist it, brothers and sisters. Let heaven help you through this. Let those who have passed on help you through this.”

“Will you see them?” he asked.

“Most likely not. Will you feel they are near? Absolutely — and especially if you will find time in this busy, hectic world we now live in to be still.”



More on this topic:

Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual, Chapter 50: D&C 130:5


Ensign 1988: Is there any truth to the idea that we have guardian angels who watch over and protect us?