Departed Loved Ones Nearby

Hyrum Smith

Joseph F. Smith

Researching and writing the posts on this blog have helped me understand the term "departed loved ones." Previously that phrase made sense to me when referring to people I had known and loved, but not so much when referring to ancestors I had never met. A wonderful byproduct of my attention to family history is that my love has exploded for family members who lived and died before me. 

The Prophet Joseph F. Smith spoke very meaningfully about departed loved ones and their continued interest and influence in our lives on earth. The son of Hyrum Smith and nephew of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he was only six years old when his father was martyred. 

He was thirteen years old when his mother passed away. Being left without either parents, her death devastated him and he spoke of that period of his life as being very difficult. Having lost my mother at a young age, I can relate to some degree to the emotions he describes:

Mary Fielding Smith

“After my mother’s death there followed 18 months - from Sept 21st, 1852, to April, 1854, of perilous times for me. I was almost like a comet or fiery meteor, without attraction or gravitation to keep me balanced or guide me within reasonable bounds.”

President Smith gained understanding of death as he matured, and later proclaimed the following prophetic words in the 1916 April General Conference. These words give me great comfort and the more I learn and draw my heart toward my ancestors, my testimony grows of their truth.

“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 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 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 ... 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 and they are solicitous for our welfare and 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."