LDS Church<\/a> teaches that there are degrees to Heaven. There is the Celestial kingdom- the highest and most desirable place to be. Only the truly faithful in all things will make it there.\u00a0 Then comes the Terrestrial Kingdom. It will be glorious and beautiful and the good people of the world will be there.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, the Telestial Kingdom is the lowest kingdom of heaven. Those who were pretty good, who never murdered anyone or broke the unforgivable commandments will reside there.\u00a0 In each of these kingdoms, there is a barrier. You can progress to a certain point, and then you\u2019re done- except the Celestial Kingdom. That one has no end to how far you can progress, and how much you can learn. The Celestial Kingdom should be everyone\u2019s goal.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hell is not talked about much in the LDS Church. And as far as I can tell you have to do some seriously awful things to merit that world. I\u2019m talking about murder and denying the Holy Ghost. \u00a0Satan will be there, and all his angels. But from what I understand denying the Holy Ghost is pretty serious. Only those who have really known Christ, had a real testimony of Him, and then denied Him can claim to have denied the Holy Ghost. So if you have a real testimony, hold tightly to it. The consequences are terrible.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
My impression of Heaven and Hell has been greatly shaped by what I\u2019ve learned in church.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heaven<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"I](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/805\/2017\/10\/pretty-woman-1509956_640-300x200.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
First I think Heaven is a place of great peace. Because of that peace, we will feel relief, and it will be spiritual rest. But I don\u2019t feel like we will be sitting around strumming harps. That sounds so boring.\u00a0 I think it will be a place with many varied classes and activities where we can really grow and learn. I think it will be a lot of fun! Because to me, there is nothing more horrible than stagnating. That to me is real damnation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the scriptures, Jesus Christ is called the Light of the World. I know when I feel the sunlight it is warm. And Heaven is a place where Christ will dwell with us. \u00a0I have had answers to prayers where the room has seemed to fill with light behind my closed eyes. During those experiences, I felt warm and peaceful.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had priesthood blessings where it\u2019s almost like a column of warm love has come through the ceiling and wrapped around me. Because of this I also think Heaven is warm and bright. And clean. I don\u2019t know about you, but a messy and dirty house is a distraction to me. I can\u2019t relax till things are tidy. That\u2019s why I feel like Heaven is clean.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think that Heaven is filled with everyone we have ever loved. My Mom once told me that every animal, every pet we have ever loved, will be there with us. I\u2019ve collected quite a little zoo if that\u2019s the case. And I can\u2019t help but feel that we will live in neighborhoods full of our friends and family. Between you and me, I really hope we get to fly. But I have a feeling we will travel more by thought, or along columns of light as the angels that Joseph Smith saw did. Don\u2019t quote me on that though.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hell<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to say then that Hell must be Heaven\u2019s opposite. Despite what many think, I don\u2019t think Hell is hot. I think it is very cold and very dark. I\u2019m sure that those who have to exist there are miserable, but not because they are being whipped or tortured by others. I\u2019m confident they are torturing themselves, in their own minds.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"wintry-1955936_640\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/805\/2017\/10\/wintry-1955936_640-300x225.jpg\")
Their punishment is knowing that they could have done so much better and achieved so much more if they had kept their focus.\u00a0 To me, Hell is a place where you want to progress, but you can\u2019t. You feel an emptiness, knowing you need something more. But it will never come. And you probably never will figure out what it is.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
To me Hell is lonely. There isn\u2019t love or peace, or friendship. In Hell the homes are isolated and it\u2019s always windy.\u00a0 (Ok, so that is nowhere in scripture. But isn\u2019t it just torture when you\u2019ve had to walk a long way on a very windy day?)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recently learned that the Norse people believe Hell is cold and icy, so they bury their people with cleats for their shoes. Just in case they end up in Hell. So maybe I\u2019m not so far in left field with my theory.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Where are you going?<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So where do you think you\u2019re going? I\u2019m grateful that we have a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to succeed. He has given us the Scriptures, a Savior, and families- all in an effort to help us return to live with Him. And He really DOES want us back with Him. I\u2019ve always been surprised and saddened when people only see God as a judge or someone waiting for us to mess up. Repentance is a gift. To me, it\u2019s proof that He wants us to be able to correct mistakes and be allowed to learn lessons while we are on earth.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not in any hurry to find out how much of my personal theory is correct about Heaven and Hell. But it will be interesting to find out the answers. I invite you over to my home in Heaven to chat about it. And have something chocolate- because I am sure calories don\u2019t exist in Heaven.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was talking to my son the other day, and he surprised me by bringing up Hell. He wanted to know where he was heading, and what it would be like. This healthy eight-year-old stunned me by the change in topic, but I tried to roll with it. (Obviously he is going to Heaven- what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3521,"featured_media":33,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-life","tag-heaven"],"yoast_head":"\n
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I'm Abby Christianson, a transplanted Mormon living the dream. In my life, I've lived in seven different US states and visited other countries. And the thing that amazes me is that in every place I've been the LDS (Mormon) church is the same. The people have hearts of gold, and their love for the Savior is unchanging. But for some reason, people still think Mormons are weird, backward, and sometimes even Amish. I'm here to try to help clear up the misconceptions about Mormons by showing you that we are just like you. We love our families, eat junk food, love movies, and spend time with friends. And just like you, our faith and values go deep. So join me as I keep trying to scatter sunshine everywhere I go. And hopefully, you'll find your faith in Christ strengthened along the way. Autism and more I'm also here to talk about Autism, and being an Autism Mom. There were few resources online when my son was diagnosed. So I want to be a support to those parents who are trying to figure out their child, and how best to support them. My wonderful son stretches me and helps me grow every day. I love being his mother and the things that make him unique. In 2020, every autism service stopped. So I got trained to be an RBT (Low-level autism therapist) with BehaviorUniversity.com. It has made homeschooling and doing at-home ABA easier as I understand my son better. They have some courses for parents to help them understand autism better, and I highly recommend them if you are searching. We have been home-schooling off and on for 6 years now. And it's wonderful to see my son thriving. Education and background Although my degree is not in education, I do have degrees from BYU Idaho and Southern Utah University in public relations, interpersonal communication, and marketing. I was lucky enough to get to teach a couple of freshman classes at SUU as part of my senior project. I have the best memories of those times. And it showed me how much I love to teach. While at SUU I was on the debate team. I wasn\u2019t great, but I loved the team and the feeling of unity we had. As a member of the Lambda Delta Signa sorority, I spent a year as VP of my chapter. I served on Institute Council and in leadership with my choir. And I was a member of the Lambda Pi Eta honor society. Funny enough, I was nominated as SUU\u2019s personality of the year in my senior year because I was so involved When my son was small I was part of the PTA at bus school \u00a0I even served on the PTA board and taught art classes to the kids. \u00a0I also volunteered to help out in the cafeteria. And I was a \u2018recess duty\u2019 meaning I got to be outside as a responsible adult during recess I love to write and wrote for LDSblogs.com as Abby Christianson and as Patty Sampson for many years. I took over editing LDS Blogs when our beloved editor Terri Bittner passed away suddenly from brain cancer in 2017. Then in 2020, LDSblogs.com stopped publishing after the pandemic affected their funding. But they are still online and some great stories are there if you are interested. I'm a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I've been married for 23 years, and a mother for 15 years. I love people and creating in any capacity I can. I hope you'll join me as we navigate this crazy world we live in.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/author\/achristianson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Heaven and Hell","description":"I was talking to my son the other day, and he surprised me by bringing up Hell. He wanted to know where he was heading, and what it would be like. 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I'm Abby Christianson, a transplanted Mormon living the dream. In my life, I've lived in seven different US states and visited other countries. And the thing that amazes me is that in every place I've been the LDS (Mormon) church is the same. The people have hearts of gold, and their love for the Savior is unchanging. But for some reason, people still think Mormons are weird, backward, and sometimes even Amish. I'm here to try to help clear up the misconceptions about Mormons by showing you that we are just like you. We love our families, eat junk food, love movies, and spend time with friends. And just like you, our faith and values go deep. So join me as I keep trying to scatter sunshine everywhere I go. And hopefully, you'll find your faith in Christ strengthened along the way. Autism and more I'm also here to talk about Autism, and being an Autism Mom. There were few resources online when my son was diagnosed. So I want to be a support to those parents who are trying to figure out their child, and how best to support them. My wonderful son stretches me and helps me grow every day. I love being his mother and the things that make him unique. In 2020, every autism service stopped. So I got trained to be an RBT (Low-level autism therapist) with BehaviorUniversity.com. It has made homeschooling and doing at-home ABA easier as I understand my son better. They have some courses for parents to help them understand autism better, and I highly recommend them if you are searching. We have been home-schooling off and on for 6 years now. And it's wonderful to see my son thriving. Education and background Although my degree is not in education, I do have degrees from BYU Idaho and Southern Utah University in public relations, interpersonal communication, and marketing. I was lucky enough to get to teach a couple of freshman classes at SUU as part of my senior project. I have the best memories of those times. And it showed me how much I love to teach. While at SUU I was on the debate team. I wasn\u2019t great, but I loved the team and the feeling of unity we had. As a member of the Lambda Delta Signa sorority, I spent a year as VP of my chapter. I served on Institute Council and in leadership with my choir. And I was a member of the Lambda Pi Eta honor society. Funny enough, I was nominated as SUU\u2019s personality of the year in my senior year because I was so involved When my son was small I was part of the PTA at bus school \u00a0I even served on the PTA board and taught art classes to the kids. \u00a0I also volunteered to help out in the cafeteria. And I was a \u2018recess duty\u2019 meaning I got to be outside as a responsible adult during recess I love to write and wrote for LDSblogs.com as Abby Christianson and as Patty Sampson for many years. I took over editing LDS Blogs when our beloved editor Terri Bittner passed away suddenly from brain cancer in 2017. Then in 2020, LDSblogs.com stopped publishing after the pandemic affected their funding. But they are still online and some great stories are there if you are interested. I'm a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I've been married for 23 years, and a mother for 15 years. I love people and creating in any capacity I can. I hope you'll join me as we navigate this crazy world we live in.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/author\/achristianson\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/scatteringsunshine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"woman-1651338_640\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/805\/2017\/10\/woman-1651338_640-300x201.jpg\")
Our discussion has stayed with me, and I\u2019ve been thinking a long time about what I really think Heaven and Hell will be like. Most religions believe that Heaven is a place of rest. And that Hell is a place of burning and suffering. My opinion is a little different.<\/p>\n