Are families assigned, chosen, or random?

[The Nehor]

28 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

When I first saw my wife she looked familiar and I looked familiar to her as well

We had  never met.  I knew we would be married on our first date and started  crying in the movie.  She thought I was  nuts.

Then she taught me Mormonism and eternal progression and it fit  perfectly with my philosophy.  Stick the fork in- we were both well done.

I still don't believe it happened.  But who knows- its only been 38 years so anything could  happen. 

She is the smartest  person I never met.  She  actually understands my philosophy after one explanation.  If we did not know each other before and covenant to find each other  here, I don't know how it could  have happened.

The first meeting was totally totally "by chance" while I was dropping off my existing girlfriend at work  (we had broken up but she needed a ride ) and lightning struck.

I love stories like this while hating that nothing like it ever happens to me. More like than hate though. Congrats.

[MDalby]

21 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I believe there were familial covenants made before we came here but that adjustments have had to be made due to agency.

Brigham Young Vision

Be sure to tell the people to keep the Spirit of the Lord; and if they will find themselves just as they were organized by our Father in Heaven, before they came into the world. Our Father in Heaven organized the human family, but they are all disorganized and in great confusion.” Joseph then showed me the pattern, how they were in the beginning. This I cannot describe, but I saw it, and saw when the Priesthood had been taken from the earth, and how it must be joined together so as to make a perfect chain from Father Adam to his latest posterity.

John Taylor's Origin and Destiny of Woman

Thou being willing and anxious to imitate them, waiting and desirous to obtain a body, a resurrection and exaltation also, and having obtained permission, madest a covenant with one of thy kindred spirits to be thy guardian angel while in mortality, also with two others, male and female spirits, that thou wouldst come and take a tabernacle through their lineage, and become one of their offspring.  You also chose a kindred spirit whom you loved in the spirit world to be your head, stay, husband and protector on the earth and to exalt you in eternal worlds.  All these were arranged, likewise the spirits that should tabernacle through your lineage.

When I look at my son, he is the spitting image of me.  There is no mistaking that he is my son.  Given that our spirits look the same as our physical bodies, I would think there was a plan that our children were born into our families.

 40 Abel, the first martyr, was there, and his brother Seth, one of the mighty ones, who was in the express image of his father, Adam.
(D&C 138:40)

In the spirit world our spirits will have the same form as when we lived on the earth with bodies of flesh and bones. We will look as we do here.
(https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-fundamentals/chapter-35-life-after-death?lang=eng)

 

In 1834, [Joseph] was commanded to take me for a wife. I was a thousand miles from him. He got afraid. The angel came to him three times, the last time with a drawn sword and threatened his life. I did not believe. If God told him so, why did he not come and tell me? The angel told him I should have a witness. An angel came to me  -  it went through me like lightning  -  I was afraid. Joseph Said he came with more revelation and knowledge than Joseph ever dare reveal. (Brigham Young sealed me to him, for time and all eternity  -  Feb. 1842.) Joseph said I was his before I came here and he said all the Devils in Hell should never get me from him.
(Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, "Statement", signed Feb. 8, 1902)

[rpn]

Well what we do now is to seal everyone to everyone whom they are eligible to be sealed to, so God can ultimately sort it out because the ordinances that have to be performed on earth have been.  (To my knowledge all of the double and triple sealing stuff is done after the death of those who are involved.   So adopted children will be sealed at adoption to their adoptive parents.  But after those children's death, they will also be eligible to be sealed to their bio parents.   After death, children can be sealed to their divorced parents, and to stepparents who adopted them, and parents to their second or third spouses.

There's just a lot we can't know about the judgment, about how relationships will work, about what degree of choice and how it will matter.  

[Mike Harris]

I believe this is the Official Church Position:

“Did we choose our families and spouses in the premortal life?

  “We don’t know…the revelations say nothing of our having made commitments to one another or of our having chosen our parents or spouses.” 

New Era, June 2016

[Eek!]

On ‎3‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 10:22 PM, Calm said:

I suspect some are assigned, a few perhaps....the rest, who knows.  Maybe it is like organ transplants, there may be many matches and you go to the one that is first available/top of the list when it's time for you to be born.

That sounds plausible to me.

23 hours ago, Calm said:

"Joseph then showed me the pattern, how they were in the beginning. This I cannot describe..."

Which would seem to suggest it was something very different from any family arrangement we have here on earth as that is describable, especially the ideal family and how the family trees branch forward and root backward.

So the pattern is something "very different from any family arrangement we have here on earth", and at the same time it may be quite flexible as far as what family one is born into.    Very interesting.

Any other thoughts about the pattern you might be willing to share? 

 

Edited March 28, 2018 by Eek!

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Eek! said:

That sounds plausible to me.

So the pattern is something "very different from any family arrangement we have here on earth", and at the same time it may be quite flexible as far as what family one is born into.    Very interesting.

Any other thoughts about the pattern you might be willing to share? 

 

My thought is we have no clue, but it is going to be great so imagine whatever gives you the greatest comfort and the greatest motivation to do right by your loved ones.

[jkwilliams]

On 3/27/2018 at 1:31 AM, asbestosman said:

That seems to fit most of what I've read / heard.

That seems to imply soulmates which, as I recall, was something Spencer W. Kimball declared was a myth.

My mission president taught us about the "Law of Attraction." I'd have to find my old mission journal, but the gist of it was that we were assigned to families before birth, based on where we would fit and most benefit from our earthly existence. However, some people, being eager to enter mortal life, could be assigned based on this "attraction," meaning the family and circumstances that they were most attracted to. I've never heard this anywhere else, but my mission president (a religion professor at BYU-Idaho) was pretty convinced of it. Who knows?

[JLHPROF]

12 hours ago, MDalby said:

When I look at my son, he is the spitting image of me.  There is no mistaking that he is my son.  Given that our spirits look the same as our physical bodies, I would think there was a plan that our children were born into our families.

 40 Abel, the first martyr, was there, and his brother Seth, one of the mighty ones, who was in the express image of his father, Adam.
(D&C 138:40)

In the spirit world our spirits will have the same form as when we lived on the earth with bodies of flesh and bones. We will look as we do here.
(https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-fundamentals/chapter-35-life-after-death?lang=eng)

 

In 1834, [Joseph] was commanded to take me for a wife. I was a thousand miles from him. He got afraid. The angel came to him three times, the last time with a drawn sword and threatened his life. I did not believe. If God told him so, why did he not come and tell me? The angel told him I should have a witness. An angel came to me  -  it went through me like lightning  -  I was afraid. Joseph Said he came with more revelation and knowledge than Joseph ever dare reveal. (Brigham Young sealed me to him, for time and all eternity  -  Feb. 1842.) Joseph said I was his before I came here and he said all the Devils in Hell should never get me from him.
(Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, "Statement", signed Feb. 8, 1902)

So Joseph, Brigham, and John Taylor all indicated the presence of premortal covenants.

That doesn't mean those covenants are always fulfilled or agency doesn't require adaptation.  But that also doesn't mean those covenants weren't made.