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What are our loved ones actually doing on the other side of the veil — and who are we working with there? In this Part 2 episode of Thinning of the Veil, host Tia Smith continues through Joseph F. Smith's Vision of the Redemption of the Dead (Doctrine and Covenants 138), teaching that for Latter-day Saints (LDS), the spirit world is a place of order, learning, and missionary labor — and that the faithful who pass on don't miss a beat.
Tia sets the scene: this vision came in 1918, amid a world war and a flu pandemic, after President Smith had buried his father, two wives, and thirteen children — proof that the Lord often gives revelation in our deepest extremity. She traces the revelatory pattern of D&C 138:1–11 (pondering the scriptures, a prompting to read Peter, being "greatly impressed," then having the eyes of his understanding opened) and shows it mirrors Joseph Smith's own First Vision pattern. She explains why the vision wasn't canonized until 1976 and 1981 — as members and technology matured enough to actually do the work — and connects it to the unprecedented pace of temple building today.
Then she walks the end of the vision: the faithful elders (and, as President Smith specifically taught, faithful sisters) called to preach in the spirit world; the "noble and great ones" foreordained to labor in the last dispensation; and the reminder that all this teaching leads to one end — temple ordinances. Who are our "mission leaders" on the other side? Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Nephi, Joseph Smith, and our own departed loved ones — co-laborers who need us, because the saving work must be done by mortals in the temple. Tia closes with James LeSueur's remarkable account of being shown the spirit world — classrooms, congregations, and his own brother Frank preaching the gospel there — a personal witness of the doctrine.
Q: What are the faithful doing on the other side of the veil? (LDS)
A: Tia teaches from D&C 138 that those who die in the faith continue their labors — preaching the gospel to the "great world of the spirits of the dead." President Wilford Woodruff taught there are "a thousand times more to preach to" there than here.
Q: Do women preach in the spirit world?
A: Yes. Joseph F. Smith specifically taught that faithful sisters, ordained and set apart to this work, are authorized to minister and teach the gospel to the women who have passed on.
Q: Who are our "companions" in this work on the other side?
A: Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Nephi, Joseph Smith, and our own departed loved ones — co-laborers who can teach but cannot perform the ordinances, which is why they need us to do the temple work.
The spirit world is busy with the Lord's work — and our loved ones are laboring right beside us.
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Citations:
Tate, Boyd K. Packer, 203.
M. Russell Ballard, “The Vision of The Redemption of the Dead”, October 2018: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/the-vision-of-the-redemption-of-the-dead?lang=eng
Mary Jane Woodger, “From Obscurity to Scripture: Joseph F. Smith's Vision of the Redemption of the Dead,”You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Scott C. Esplin, Richard O. Cowan, and Rachel Cope (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 234–54.
D&C 138
D&C 110:1, D&C 76:12,
Henry B. Eyring, “Serve with the Spirit”, Oct. 2010: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2010/10/serve-with-the-spirit?lang=eng
Joseph F. Smith, “The Desert Blossoming as a Rose,” in Collected Discourses, 3:219. These remarks were delivered at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on 8 January 1893.
Discourse by Pres. Wilford Woodruff,” Deseret News, Jan. 25, 1882, 818).
(Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [1939], 461).
D&C 128:18, D&C 3:23, Alma 13:3, Jacob 6:2-3
Russell M. Nelson, (“Decisions for Eternity,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2013, 107): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2013/10/decisions-for-eternity?lang=eng
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