God is our Heavenly Father and we are His children.  He loves us and wants us to be successful in this life and to return to live in His presence.

God is your Father in Heaven (Matthew 6:9).  We call God Heavenly Father because He is the Father of our spirits and we are created in His image ( Genesis 1:27).

God has a body that looks like yours, though His body is immortal, perfected, and has a glory beyond description.  He knows you personally and loves you more than you can comprehend.  To help you find happiness in this life and guide you to return to live with Him, Heavenly Father provided a plan called the gospel? of Jesus Christ, a guide based on the life and teachings of His Son, Jesus Christ.

From the beginning, Heavenly Father has called prophets? to testify, record His word, and provide His plan for His children on the earth.  The teachings of prophets are found in sacred? books called scriptures? ( Amos 3:7). 

Your Heavenly Father knows you and loves you and wants to help you return to Him.  Your life on Earth is part of His plan for you to gain a body, learn, grow, and find joy.  Sometimes life is hard, lonely, or frightening, but your Heavenly Father is always there.  He sorrows when you suffer and rejoices when you do what is right.  He wants to communicate with you as you sincerely pray to Him, and He stands ready to give you comfort, peace, and guidance in your life.

Jesus Christ taught that you must know the only true God to have eternal life ( John 17:3).  As His child, you must know who He is and what He is like to find greater peace and joy, both in this life and in the life to come.  

Such questions as “What is the purpose of life?” or “Why am I here?” can be answered by understanding God’s plan for the happiness of His children.

In the scriptures God's plan is called the plan of salvation, the plan of redemption, the plan of happiness. The plan is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement.  Throughout time, people have often pondered questions such as “Where did I come from?” “What is my purpose in life?”  and “Where will I go after this life?”  God has a plan for the happiness of His children: the plan of salvation?, which is centered on the Atonement? of Jesus Christ.  As you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will find answers to these questions, gain lasting inner peace in this life, and earn eternal joy after death.

Before you began your life on Earth, you lived with your Heavenly Father as one of His spirit children.  Although it was a joyful existence, God knew that you could not continue to progress unless you left Him for a time.

He allowed you to come to Earth, where you would gain a physical body and would have experiences that would help you to learn and grow, fulfilling the purpose of the plan of salvation: to help you become more like your Heavenly Father. 

According to the plan, you could not continue to progress continually without the opportunity to enter mortality and receive a physical body. Here on earth you would have experiences that would help you learn and grow, and you would be proven to see if [you would] do all things whatsoever the Lord would command ( Abraham 3:25). The purpose of the plan is to help you become more like your Heavenly Father.  The fact that you are living on Earth means that you accepted Heavenly Father’s plan and came here wanting to do all you could to receive all He has to offer. 

Knowing that we would commit sin in mortality, your loving Heavenly Father provided a Savior, Jesus Christ, who by His sacrifice would make it possible for all people who would comply with His gospel teachings to be forgiven through repentance and return to live with Him.  Having a divine nature as a child of God, you can with the assistance and power of Christ, progress to become one day even as He is.

Understanding this eternal perspective can help you find happiness in your life, even amid trials and challenges.  As a child of a loving Heavenly Father, you can view your struggles as stepping-stones bringing you closer to Him.  As you ask for help and strength in earnest prayer, you can have the assurance that you are not alone.  God loves you and will help you as you turn to Him.

God has blessed us with gifts to help us navigate our lives.  One of the most precious gifts He has given everyone is the ability and power to make choices.  Your Heavenly Father respects your freedom to choose and will never force you to choose what is right, nor will He stop you from being able to make poor choices.  He will however, invite and endeavor to entice you ‘to do good continually’( Moroni 7:13).

He knows that whatever your choice, you are also choosing a consequence.  Consequences may appear immediately or may come much later. But choosing good eventually leads to happiness, and wrong choices eventually lead to unhappiness.  Heavenly Father allows you to make choices and experience their consequences so you may learn the difference between good and evil.  In learning to choose good, you are creating a pattern that will help you become more like your Heavenly Father.

Families are ordained of God.  They are the most important social unit in time and in eternity.

God has established families to bring happiness to His children, allow them to learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and prepare them to return to Him after they die.  Because families are ordained of God, they are the most important social unit in time and in eternity. 

Marriage (Genesis 2:18) and family ( Genesis 1:28) are central focal points in God’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.  Your Heavenly Father wants you to do all you can during your time on Earth to prepare yourself to live in an eternal family.

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on sound principles, like those that Jesus Christ taught.  These principles include faith in Jesus Christ, prayer, repentance?, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.  A home established on gospel principles is a place of refuge and safety, where the Spirit of the Lord? can abide, blessing family members with peace, joy, and happiness (“ The Family: A Proclamation to the World”).

No marriage or family is perfect.  When dealing with challenging relationships, it may help to remember that each person on this earth is a beloved son or daughter of God and has a divine nature and destiny.  Learning to love and serve your family members, as Christ taught, will help you become more like your Heavenly Father and will help you prepare to live with Him again in an eternal family.