All who have lived on earth and had not accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ nor completed the required ordinances, reside in a place the scriptures refer to as Spirit Prison. All those who have passed from this life, having accepted the Gospel and completed all of the essential ordinances, reside in a place referred to as Paradise. Whether Paradise is a totally separate place from the Spirit Prison, we are not sure. However, we do know that there are missionaries going among those in the Spirit Prison and teaching the Gospel. Therefore, there has to be an interaction between them. Some leaders of the church have suggested that we are all together in the same spiritual realm, the difference is not in location but rather in attitude and progressive options. According to the scriptures those who have parted this life as faithful servants are in a state of happiness, a spiritual paradise.
There are a lot of questions about the spirit world that have not been answered and questions that we will more than likely have to wait until we get there ourselves, to find the answers. We are not totally in the dark, however, as we do have a few scriptures from the statements that prophets have made. Christ only mentioned Paradise and Paul went further by mentioning the Spirit Prison. Joseph F. Smith elaborated on both Christ’s and Paul’s statement’s, in the New Testament. His vision is found in the 138th section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Our pre-earth spirits, were adult spirits as evidenced by Christ’s appearance to the Brother of Jared. “And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image?…Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; … and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.” (Ether 3:15-16) & (I Nephi 11:11). Our spirits, when we die, leave our mortal bodies and go to the spirit world, and they must appear as they did when they were in the pre-earth state. Maybe if a grandfather who had passed to the other side could appear to a grandson, he might say something like this; ‘Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit and even as I appeared unto thee in the flesh (mortality) do I now appear unto you in the spirit.’
Some members of the church believe that if those who had not accepted the Gospel while in this life, after having had an opportunity to hear it, that they would not accept it in the spirit world. Based on a statement by President Snow, that is not true. President Lorenzo Snow said, “I believe that when the Gospel is preached to the spirits in prison…There will be very few indeed of those spirits who will not gladly receive the Gospel when it is carried to them. Why, because the circumstances there will be a thousand times more favorable.”
Based on the above information members should not be selective in their ancestral research nor in their temple work. A touching example was written by a member from Florida, who wrote regarding temple work for someone she felt was unworthy: Her mother’s mother had treated her mother horribly while her mother was growing up and then later, she even ignored her grandchildren.
Many years later while going through the list of temple slips, prepared for temple work she kept passing by her grandmother’s name. She finally got down to the last five slips including her grandmother’s while finishing the initiatory work. As she was trying to decide which name to take through a session, the temple matron, with tears in her eyes, said “I don’t know who this is but you need to finish her today.” She then had a similar feeling and so she did her grandmother’s endowment that day. She knew that her grandmother had accepted the Gospel and her heart was immediately softened towards her.
We should probably assume that all of our ancestors will accept the Gospel and turn our hearts to each of them with love and compassion.