I have prepared a talk this morning just for Jan.  She'll understand it even if the rest of us don't. She has been a pilot, and none of the rest of us have ever flown a plane.

Adam announced yesterday that he passed his flight test and is now a licensed pilot.  The flight examiner had him put on a hood which allowed him to see the instrument panel, but nothing outside.  At one point the flight examiner told Adam to bow his head so that he couldn't see the instrument panel, either.  The examiner then took over the controls and put the plane through a series of rolls, climbs, and dives designed to disorient Adam.  While sitting in his seat with the plane moving forward at 100-120 miles per hour Adam was unable to tell if the plane was banking to the right or to the left, or whether it was continuing straight ahead, or if it was even perhaps upside down.  When told to again look at the instrument panel, Adam's job was to recover the plane, and put it back on course.  He discovered that the plane was sideways, and heading straight for the ground.

The first thing you're to do in such a situation is to level the airplane and then correct the airspeed.  He got the plane leveled off, and put it back on course for their destination.

Adam's flight test is a metaphor for the state that the world is in.  Everything is upside down, and we seem headed for a crash.  It's difficult to get one's bearings, and the situation is vastly complicated by the sense which we have that our national leaders have no idea which way is up, either.

I was intrigued yesterday morning to read a statement by General Authority Seventy, Peter M. Johnson.  Elder Johnson said, "If we do not understand who we are, then it is difficult to recognize who we can become."  (Ensign, November 2020, 110).

That, I think, sums up the problem.  Few people know who they are, where they are going, or what their potential is.

To understand who we are, we must know where we came from.  This is a treasure of knowledge that puts our entire mortal perspective into focus, and changes how we view life, our present circumstances, and eternity.

First, we must realize that we are the literal offspring of God, and that we are made in His image.  In other words, we look like Him, and we look like Jesus.  The Father and the Son are two, separate Beings.  In the book of Genesis, in the very first chapter, God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."  (Genesis 1:26-27).

Paul affirms that this is so.  He said, "For we are also his offspring.

"Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's devise."  (Acts 17:28-29).

In other words, we ought not think that God is some man-made object or some incomprehensible power or essence, because He is a Man, like unto ourselves.

"Furthermore," Paul says, "we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence:  shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"  (Hebrews 12:9).

"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

"And if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ ..."  (Romans 8:16-17).

Second, we must understand that we have been around for a very long time.  We did not come into existence at birth.  God is the Father of our spirits, and we existed as spirits long before we were born.  We looked then as we look now, except that we didn't have bodies.

This concept--this doctrine--is ignored by the Christian world at large, but is plainly taught in the eighth chapter of Proverbs:

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

"I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

"When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:  (In my scriptures, beside this verse, I have written with an exclamation point, "I'm older than the hills!")

"While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.

"When he prepared the heavens, I was there:  when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

"When he established the clouds above:  when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:

"When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment:  when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

"Then I was by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; ..."  (Proverbs 8:22-30).

It is no wonder then that God was able to say to Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."  (Jeremiah 1:5).

What a beautiful thought it is to know that God is literally our father--the Father of our spirits-- that we were brought up by Him, and that we lived with Him.  President Ezra Taft Benson said that "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."  ("Jesus Christ--Gifts and Expectation," in Speeches of the Year 1974, Provo, Brigham Young University Press, 1975, p. 313).

The Lord asked Job a question that is instructive for us:  He asked, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding ... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"  (Job 38:4 and 7).

We were those sons and daughters of God.

And what was all the shouting about?

We had just been informed that an earth was going to be formed, and that we would each be given the opportunity to go there, to be mortals for a time, to obtain a body like that of our Father, to gain experience, to learn, to repent, and to return to our Father and live the life that He lives.  He wants us to be like Him.

We were so excited that we shouted for joy.  Each of us eagerly signed on for this trip.  But a veil was drawn over the memories of our pre-earth life so that we would learn faith and operate by faith.

As I explain this concept to you, you feel interest and perhaps excitement as you contemplate this new idea.  Those feelings are a stirring of your memory.  It is the Holy Ghost witnessing to your spirit that these things are true.  If you don't suppress the feelings they will grow into a whole new way of looking at life.

Many people suppress those feelings and reject the teachings of the scriptures and of the prophets.  Their world is dark, and they become blind guides leading the blind.  Both will fall into the ditch.  They refuse to look at the instrument panel, and that inevitably leads to a crash.

I bear testimony that a restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ has taken place, and that the Church that He established in the meridian of time is again upon the earth with all of the beautiful teachings that He originally put forth.  There is much more, and is is all intended to bring light, guidance, peace, joy, and salvation to all of God's children.