The Book of Mormon contains many very remarkable statements. Consider this one:

"For all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual." (Helaman 14:16).

Imagine that! Those on the other side of the veil consider us as dead!

I suppose that our leaving the pre-earth state was accompanied by mourning. We left friends and family, and none of them were sure that we would be faithful, safe and secure, and successfully return from the hazardous trip through mortality. We weren't sure, either. That separation was a genuine death. We were undoubtedly as sad in the pre-earth existence to bid goodbye to our future grandfather, as we are here in mortality to say goodbye to him as we see him on his death bed. We cry. We probably cried over there as we bid goodbye to our closest friends who were to become our future family.

Even God weeps. (Moses 7:28). The whole heavens weep. (Moses 7:37). If our departures to mortality are considered as deaths, then those departures were certainly accompanied by weeping.

Here is another amazing statement from the Book of Mormon:

"And it shall come to pass that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life. insomuch as they have become immortal, they must appear before the judgment seat of the Holy One of Israel." (2 Nephi 9:15).

It was Jacob who said that. He was saying that when we come to our mortal deaths, we pass unto life. His perspective agrees with that in the previous scripture that I quoted. Here in mortality we're dead. When we come to the point of mortal death, we pass unto life!

I like that a lot. It's all a matter of perspective. Here in mortality our perspectives are all wrong. We're not only dead, we're blind. We're dumb. We know so little. Our vision and our knowledge are so limited. We think we're smart, but we're just babes.

God, however, "knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it." (2 Nephi 9:20). Another remarkable statement!

Here's another from the same chapter:

"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

"But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God." (2 Nephi 9:28-29).

Back about the year 1400 it is said that it was possible for one man to know everything that was known. I suppose that was so. The explosion of knowledge didn't begin until the Renaissance. The world didn't "take off" until the restoration of the gospel in 1830.

Interestingly, the Union Pacific Railroad commissioned a study some years ago that was to determine when it was that the world "took off." Those learned researchers studied all of the significant inventions that have been made, and pinpointed the year 1830 as the year when the world took off. That is not coincidental. The only surprising thing is that the researchers were able to recognize the fact.

The point of these observations is that we need to humble ourselves, and realize that we're just babies trying to learn how to walk and to talk. We've only barely scratched the surface of what we'll eventually need to know if we're to become gods and creators of worlds. We're dead. We're dumb. We're ignorant in comparison to those who have passed unto life. Our present job is to repent and to get ourselves into the best possible position to begin learning what the Lord wants to teach us. He wants us to know everything that He knows, and to become like Him.

We spent an eternity preparing for the death that would propel us into mortality. We now only get these very few years of mortality to prepare ourselves for the next life. The next life will last forever. The next life will be filled with learning, unimaginable beauty, unimaginable joy, breathtaking opportunity, and the presence of the Father and the Son if we make the proper preparations now. If I'm smart I won't put limitations on myself by sinning and being hardhearted.