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Dear Gramps,

My mother passed on when I was very little, but I have often seen her in my dreams. In fact, when I joined the Church, it was because of something she told me to do that lead me to the Missionaries. She told me in my dream what would happen, and after I followed her instructions, it happened.

Are there such things as guardian angels like this? Could it all be my imagination? I told my conversion story to a main-stream Christian friend of mine, and she used this to “prove” that the Church wasn’t true, because according to her, if someone dead visits you, it’s the devil.

What’s the truth?

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

In Doctrine and Covenants section 130, the Prophet Joseph Smith stated:  “… there are no angels who minister to this earth but those who do belong or have belonged to it. ”

President Joseph F. Smith gave us some insight about angels who minister to those on the earth: “When messengers are sent to minister to the inhabitants of this earth, they are not strangers, but from among our kindred, friends, and fellow-beings and fellow-servants. The ancient prophets who died were those who came to visit their fellow creatures upon the earth. They came to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; … such beings … waited upon the Savior and administered to him on the Mount. … Our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters and friends who have passed away from this earth, having been faithful, and worthy to enjoy these rights and privileges, may have a mission given them to visit their relatives and friends upon the earth again, bringing from the divine Presence messages of love, of warning, or reproof and instruction, to those whom they had learned to love in the flesh.” (Gospel Doctrine, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1970, pages 435–36.)

President Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Bruce R. McConkie both acknowledged that help may come from ministering angels at critical times in our lives, but that the true “guardian angel” for each individual on the earth is the power and direction available through the Light of Christ and the Holy Ghost. (See Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, compiled by Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols., Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954, 1:54; and Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, Second edition, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966, pages 341–42.)

There are many times in the Bible where angels sent from God administered to people here on the earth.  Angels heralded the birth of our Savior and they were definitely not evil.

Gramps

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