Latter-day Saints are privileged to know that the repentant of men will be able to one day see the Savior’s face (see #44 EVERY SOUL. . .SHALL SEE MY FACE AND KNOW THAT I AM).

Latter-day Saints are also fortunate to know that we lived in the presence of God and Christ before coming to earth (Doctrine & Covenants 93:29; Abraham 3:22–23). It is because of this presence with God and Christ that Latter-day Saints have the tender and wonderful knowledge that, when we see the Savior, His face will actually be familiar to us. President Ezra Taft Benson wrote:

We once knew well our Elder Brother and His and our Father in Heaven. We rejoiced at the prospects of earth life that could make it possible for us to have a fulness of joy. We could hardly wait to demonstrate to our Father and our Brother, the Lord, how much we loved them and how we would be obedient to them in spite of the earthly opposition of the evil one. Now we are here. Our memories are veiled. We are showing God and ourselves what we can do. Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.¹⁰⁰

This knowledge asks us to contemplate just what it will be like to see the Savior and know that we have been numbered by Him and known by Him for all our lives (3 Nephi 18:31).

Preface: The Godhead - Heavenly Parents

Central to the beliefs and practice of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the understanding of the Godhead. The Church has made much of its reputation for its beliefs about the Godhead. Joseph Smith declared that God the Father had a body of flesh and bone, that there was no such thing as immaterial spirit, and that the Father had created the earth out of preexisting matter and not out of nothing as was and is commonly believed among mainstrem Christians.

The following 18 gifts explore each unique and exclusive aspect of the Latter-day Saint understanding of the Godhead.