Please help me remember the doctrine that drives this. I seem to remember that my patriarchal blessing stated that I would come forth at the first resurrection out of the grave. If that is the prevailing belief in mormonism, how is one "reunited" with their loved ones immediately upon death? I guess I've been out of the cult too long to remember how I reconciled that?

Faithful members go to spirit paradise on death and are reunited with other faithful mormons and those that passed away and had their temple work done.

Non faithful mormons end up in spirit prison with the other billions of souls that never heard the gospel or having heard the gospel are waiting their temple ordinances.

Faithful mormons believe they will be missionaries amongst the billions of souls that never heard the gospel.

A mission in the spirit world... best millions of years of my life!

Haha. Now that has the makings for the worst "back on the mission" dream ever!

ok, so according to mormon doctrine, the spirit leaves the body when we die and goes to spirit paradise. The spirit looks like a regular person I guess..otherwise we wouldn't recognize each other. Do the folks who have gone before get some sort of notice that the newly departed has arrived? I know this sounds fantastical but I honestly do not remember ever being given the specifics or logistics of how this supposedly works.

Since my bishop way back in 1993 would not even consider my request for a temple divorce when DH and I got our civil divorce ("it will all be worked out in the eternities"), technically we are still sealed....oh wait....we both left the cult, so our sealing is void. Since we won't go to spirit paradise, I wonder if mormon doctrine has any answer for whether we will even recognize any of the folks in the spirit prison. Cause I know lots of folks who will be there along with me.

Hate to break it to you, but your sealing is not void, it is suspended. If you get re-baptized they un-suspend it. LDS Inc gave you a unicorn in the temple, and they refuse to take it back. The best they will do is trade you for another unicorn if you decide to get sealed to some other "worthy priesthood holder". Like that is going to happen, though that is a different subject.

Of course, if you are male, you don't even have to trade in the old unicorn. You get to keep both of them.

Yeah, unicorns don't exist. They still refuse to take it back. Apparently it is not quite impossible to get a sealing cancelled, but they really drag their feet. But remember, it is an argument over a unicorn.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
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> Hate to break it to you, but your sealing is not void, it is suspended.

This is perhaps a quibble, but the CHI (2010 edition) says 3.6.1 that the sealing is "revoked."

What is really odd is that it also says that the "blessings"of the "innocent party" are not affected, which means that the faithful spouse is still sealed, but the apostate is not.

Go figger...

I have some news for you!!!
When you are dead you are dead!!!

as a young TBM when I would read or hear from non-Mormons talking about some loved one who had passed being reunited with other deceased family and friends. They talked about it matter-of-factly and confidently in the same way that Mormons talked about it. BUT how could they? How dare they? They never paid tithing to the real church. They didn't have any temple sealings done.

Where did they get the idea that the spirits of their dead kinfolk could be together again in the hereafter without going through the proper procedures?

That gave me a headache. And that headache was asking me: "Where did you get the idea that spirits CAN'T be reunited without first getting some prescribed mumbo jumbo procedures performed for them in a Mormon temple?" From God, I suppose. But really from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, who claimed it was from God, but I'm in a position of having to take their word for it because God never told me anything about it directly. And the more I know about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, it seems that taking their word for anything is not the no-brainer I once was taught it was.

So those kinds of cog-dis generated conversations went back and forth in the back of my mind for several years and throughout my mission...leading to my eventual light bulb realization that Mormon "doctrine" is as phony as a Nigerian e-mail scam.

A little cog-dis here and there is good for the soul.