Preparation for receiving the Gospel - understanding of the Scriptures

While sometimes being immersed in another religion can make it difficult for someone to receive/understand the Gospel, in many times it is an advantage. It appears that understanding the scriptures, while not being too dogmatic allows someone to accept new truth that comes along.

For example, consider King Agrippa, who apparently knew the scriptures and was close to accepting the gospel.

Acts 26:
27 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.

28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.

Paul was able to tie together the prophecies of the scriptures with the coming of Jesus (showing the fulfillment of those prophecies). Agrippa, likely recognizing how nice the additional truth sounded and perhaps felt, was somewhat accepting of the message. It is so helpful when people consider and love the scriptures, as it makes them much more likely to accept our message, that there are prophets in the land again in preparation for Christ's second coming.

Common Error - Spirit Paradise and Spirit Prison

On the mission, most missionaries and probably most members when explaining the spirit world teach, "when someone dies, they'll either go to spirit paradise if they were good or spirit prison if they were bad."

Now truthfully, we don't know exactly what about spirit prison makes it spirit prison and what about spirit paradise makes it spirit paradise, but we do know that the above statement isn't correct. The terrestrial kingdom includes the following:

D.C.76:75These are they who are ^ahonorable men of the earth, who were^bblinded by the craftiness of men.

Also, see this:

73And also they who are the ^aspirits of men kept in ^bprison, whom the Son visited, and ^cpreached the ^dgospel unto them, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh;

Therefore, if you haven't accepted the gospel, you go to spirit prison, whatever that means exactly, until you accept it. Spirit prison is likely a condition of a lack of spiritual knowledge, peace, and happiness that you don't have because you don't know the gospel and the purpose of spirit life. If life feels empty for some now, it likely feels incredibly empty when someone absolutely knows that there is something more to know about the purpose of life but doesn't have it. Now, this paragraph is speculation. However, it's clear that we teach this principle incorrectly most of the time.

Why? Because most everyone teaches it that way. Also, once I noticed it about half-way through the mission, I'm not sure I changed because the message was roughly right, just too general with words. However, if I were explaining it today, I hope I would just explain it correctly. If you don't accept the gospel here, something will clearly be missing there, and you'll be in spirit prison in essence until you accept it. I must also say, it's interesting that the Lord likely isn't that concerned about this problem. Because we know so little about the next life, it's likely that I'm only 40% right and the last explanation is 30% right, so what's the big deal? That's why it's not worth getting too upset about doctrinal things. We're just doing our best, and eventually we'll know everything and perhaps be surprised by some of the details.

One last thing regarding spirit prison and paradise: it's possible that the Lord would describe those here without the gospel as living in a spirit prison. We must remember that it's said that the same sociality that existed among us here will exist among us there. (D.C. 131).

Finally, we have a significant amount more insight into the next world than other religions, which is definitely a blessing and helps our understanding of the purpose of life significantly.

Have a great day!