What Happens After I Die?
When we die, our spirit—the essence of who we are—lives on.
Everyone goes through different experiences in life, but at some point, all of us will face death. As you understand how death fits into God’s plan, you can find comfort as you mourn the loss of a loved one or contemplate your own mortality.
Before you came to earth, you lived with God as a spirit without a physical body. Just like your parents here on earth sent you out into the world to learn and grow, your Heavenly Father sent you—His child—to earth so you could gain a body and learn to become more like Him.
God loves you, and He wants you to return to live with Him and with your loved ones in joy and peace forever. When someone you love dies, what can feel like an agonizing end is only a temporary separation.
Through Audrey's medical career, she has seen the path of life entering this world and life leaving this world. Listen to her thoughts on the joy and comfort that come from faith we can be with our loved ones in the next life.
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What happens after we die?
When we die, our spirit—the essence of who we are—lives on. The spirits of people who die go to the spirit world, which is divided into paradise and prison, to await Judgment Day.
For good people, paradise is a place of happiness, where they are met by family members who passed on before them. The Book of Mormon teaches it is “a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow” (Alma 40:12).
For people who lived unrighteous lives, spirit prison is an unhappy place to confront a “perfect knowledge of all [their] guilt” (2 Nephi 9:14). People who didn’t have an opportunity on earth to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, or chose not to, are taught the gospel of Jesus Christ (see 1 Peter 3:18-19).
As part of God’s plan, Jesus Christ suffered and died for all of us—including you. He lived a sinless life on earth and then suffered for your sins so that when you repent, you can be worthy to live with God again.
After suffering for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, Jesus died and rose from the dead. His power over death means everyone will be resurrected. At the Resurrection, your spirit will be reunited with your perfected, immortal body, now free from sickness and pain.
Neither salvation nor the Resurrection would be possible without our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Ancient scriptures and modern revelation from God teach us that there is more to the afterlife than just “heaven” or “hell.” Jesus declared, “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2). In the Final Judgment, we will be assigned to one of three kingdoms of glory, based on our earthly deeds and desires. In the scriptures, the glory of these three kingdoms is compared to that of the sun, the moon, and the stars.
The celestial kingdom is reserved for those who faithfully follow Jesus Christ by receiving His ordinances, keeping His commandments, and repenting of their sins. These people will live with God and Jesus forever and become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
The terrestrial kingdom will be for honorable people who choose not to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ in this life but who then do so in the spirit world after they die. It will also be for those who were not valiant in following the Savior. They will “receive of the presence of the Son [Jesus], but not of the fulness of the Father” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:77).
The telestial kingdom will be the place for people who rejected Jesus Christ’s gospel and chose to continue in their sins.