The LDS Daily WOOL Home Page
9/12/98
"If there had been no free agency, there could have been no rebellion in
heaven; but what would man amount to without this free agency? He would
be no better than a mechanical contrivance. He could not have acted for
himself, but in all things would have been acted upon, and hence unable
to have received a reward for meritorious conduct. He would have been an
automaton; could have had no happiness nor misery, "neither sense nor
insensibility," and such could hardly be called existence. Under such
conditions there could have been no purpose in our creation."
Joseph
Fielding Smith
"Doctrines of Salvation," 1:64
9/13/98
"The work to be done by John the Baptist, by the ancient Twelve, by
Columbus, by the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and by the
framers of the Constitution of the United States was all known and
arranged for in advance. And all these are but illustrations and
patterns, for all of the Lord's work is planned and prepared in advance,
and those who are called and chosen to do the work receive their
commission and ordination from him, first in the preexistence and then,
if they remain true and faithful, again here in mortality."
Elder
Bruce R. McConkie
"God Foreordains His Prophets And His People"
General Conference, April 1974
9/14/98
"Preexistence is not some remote and mysterious place. All of us are but
a few years removed from the Eternal Presence, from him whose children
we are and in whose house we dwelt. All of us are separated by a thin
veil only from the friends and fellow laborers with whom we served on
the Lord's errand before our eternal spirits took up their abodes in
tabernacles of clay."
Elder
Bruce R. McConkie
"God Foreordains His Prophets And His People"
General Conference, April 1974
9/15/98
"In the premortal world before we left the presence of Heavenly Father,
He warned and cautioned us about new experiences we would have in
mortality. We knew that we would have a physical body of flesh and
bone. Never having been mortal before, we had no experience dealing with
the temptations of mortality. But Heavenly Father knew and understood.
He charged us to control our mortal bodies and to make them subject to
our spirits. Our spirits would have to master the physical temptations
that our bodies would encounter in a temporal world. Spiritual power
over the influence of Satan comes to us by keeping the commandments of
our Lord, Jesus Christ."
M.
Russell Ballard
"Ensign," May 1993 (April Conference) page 6
9/16/98
"I suppose that many of us, if not all, labored as missionaries for the
Savior in the premortal life, going among the spirits to persuade others
to choose the Savior, and following him in preparing for earth
life. We now have a veil of forgetfulness drawn over our minds.
and we do not remember the details of those events; yet the spiritual
capacity that we developed in the pre-earth life has come with us into
mortality, and when we hear the gospel preached it strikes a familiar
note. We are learning again principles we once knew; that capacity
responds to every true doctrine that is taught to us when it is properly
stated. Our main business in this
world is to continue that spiritual development we started so long ago,
and this we will do by obedience to the gospel."
Robert
J. Matthews
"Why a Savior Is Necessary, and Why Only Jesus Christ Could Qualify"
BYU Speeches of the Year, 4 December 1984
5/20/04
"Why were we then happy? I think it was because good had triumphed over
evil and the whole human family was on the Lord's side. We turned our
backs on the adversary and aligned ourselves with the forces of God, and
those forces were victorious. But having made that decision, why should
we have to make it again and again after our birth into mortality? I
cannot understand why so many have betrayed in life the decision they
once made when the great war occurred in heaven. But it is evident that
the contest between good and evil, which began with that war, has never
ended. It has gone on, and on, and on to the present. I think our Father
must weep because so many of His children through the ages have
exercised the agency He gave them and have chosen to walk the road of
evil rather than good." - Gordon B. Hinckley, "The
Dawning
of a Brighter Day," General Conference, April 2004
9/8/09
“How long we were
conditioned, schooled, and prepared in the pre-existence for the
opportunity to come here to this life, we have no way of knowing.
Certainly, as men measure time, it was a period of near-infinite
duration. But in any event, after a long schooling and preparatory
period, there came a time when this earth was created for us, when the
plan of salvation was announced to us, when we were taught that we
would come down here for two purposes: first, to gain bodies, mortal
bodies, which would be given us again in immortality, in a resurrected
state, as a consequence of an infinite and eternal atoning sacrifice
which would be made; and secondly, that we would come here to be
examined and tried and tested, to see if we would believe the truth,
accept the truth, live the truth, walk in conformity to the mind and
will of the Lord, as that was revealed to us by his prophets.” – Bruce
R. McConkie, April 20, 1960, “BYU Speeches of the Year,” 1960, p. 3
2/13/14
Premortality is not a relaxing doctrine. For each of us, there are
choices to be made, incessant and difficult chores to be done, ironies
and adversities to be experienced, time to be well spent, talents and
gifts to be well employed. Just because we were chosen “there and
then,” surely does not mean we can be indifferent “here and now.”
Whether foreordination for men, or foredesignation for women, those
called and prepared must also prove “chosen, and faithful.” (See Rev.
17:14; D&C
121:34–36.) - Neal A. Maxwell, “Premortality,
a Glorious Reality,” Ensign (CR) November 1985
8/11/14
…
you and I, having been spirits and now having bodies, were among
those who passed that first test and were given the privilege of
coming to earth as mortal individuals. If we hadn’t passed that
test, we wouldn’t be here with mortal bodies, but would have been
denied this privilege and would have followed Satan or Lucifer, as
he came to be known, as did one-third of the spirits created in that
premortal existence who were deprived of the privilege of having
mortal bodies. These are now among us, but only in their spiritual
form, to make a further attempt to thwart the plan of salvation by
which all who would obey would have the great glory of returning to
God our Father who gave us life. - Harold
B. Lee, “Understanding
Who We Are Brings Self-Respect,” Ensign (CR) November 1973
8/19/14
I can picture an interview with my Heavenly Father before coming to
this earth—an interview in which he called to me and spoke to me,
showing me what he had in store for me. It must have been a tender
interview with a loving Father who was about to let his son go for a
time. I anxiously await my next interview. - Horacio A. Tenorio,
“Let
Us Build Fortresses,” Ensign (CR) November 1994
7/19/15
This Church stands on a unique foundation, anchored to a bedrock of
timeless truth. Brothers and sisters, the holy cause in which we are
engaged did not begin in 1820 in the state of New York. It did not
begin in Bethlehem. It did not begin in the Garden of Eden. The
underpinnings of the everlasting gospel were in place even before
the world was. - Russell M.
Nelson, "How
Firm Our Foundation," Ensign (CR), May 2002, p. 75