EARTH LIFE with its joys and sorrows is a necessary part of our eternal existence. Its purposes are to prepare us to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father and to provide the way whereby we may receive a fulness of joy.

EARTH LIFE with its joys and sorrows is a necessary part of our eternal existence. Its purposes are to prepare us to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father and to provide the way whereby we may receive a fulness of joy.

John declared that "Christ received not of the fulness at the first," but that he "continued from grace to grace until he received a fulnesss and thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at the first." Thus is it with us all. We must work out our salvation and exaltation by coming to this earth. Man must be born into mortality and live and die that he may continue in his progress toward eternal life and exaltation.

Even the Savior of the world, the Only Begotten Son of God, was obliged to come to earth and to take upon himself an earthly tabernacle. He experienced joy and sorrow, happiness and grief, lasting satisfaction and frequent disappointments. As Paul has written, "Though he were a Son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him."