Question
Gramps,
Someone close to me is in her final days on this earth. She speaks very little and when she does it don’t make sense to those around her. My thoughts have turned to what she is experiencing as she prepares to leave this earthly life. Do we know if angels accompany the dying to heaven? Is dying a scary experience? Do they not want to leave this earth?
Shanelle
Answer
Hi Shanelle,
I appreciate you taking the time to ask this question as it seems important to you. Let’s see if we can address these three questions in a proper manner and according to what we know (what has been revealed if anything) and what we don’t know (nothing revealed but we have stories).
Do we know if angels accompany the dying to heaven?
Let’s break down this question into two parts, as these two parts are important to this question. The first part is, do angels accompany the dying? The second part is “to heaven.” I’ll begin with the second part — to heaven. According to our theology “heaven” is broken down into three potential kingdoms: Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial. If we want to be more thorough, it would be better said that “heaven” is the Celestial kingdom where we live with the Father and the Son (Jesus Christ).
One thing for sure we know is that our eternal outcome is received after final judgement. In this light, the answer to this part is no. There isn’t any angel that accompanies the “dying” into heaven as heaven comes much later after our death. At final judgement we will all be dead. We will already be mixing and mingling with our loved ones, especially those of a similar countenance. Once judgement is made I’m sure we will have loved ones that we accompany into heaven after death.
Now, for the first part now that we have clarified “heaven.” Let’s change the question a little. Do we know if angels will accompany the dying into the Spirit World, the place granted for a period of time to wait for judgement. The answer to this question could be both, yes and no. There isn’t any official doctrine that specifies we will have a loved or or some angel (unknown to us in this life) accompanying us to the Spirit World; however, we do have statements like this from our apostles:
Elder Henry B. Erying in his talk, “A Matter of the Heart,” shared the following story regarding the passing of his mother and the thoughts of his father. He shares the following possibility/reality:
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