How would you explain the main foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to a child?
Read Dave’s answer
Answer 1
Heavenly Father loves us. He created our spirits, and we dwelt with God in an innocent state as spirits.
Because He loves us, he has sent us to earth to gain a body like He has, learn about good and evil, and live by faith until we can return to dwell with Him as perfected beings. However, in learning to live by faith and truly know good from evil so we can always choose good, we fall short, and sin.
So Heavenly Father provided us with a Savior - His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the most perfect and intelligent of all of God’s spirit children. Jesus came to earth, just like us, to redeem us, by paying for our sins. That’s something we could never do for ourselves - only the perfect and pure Son of God could do that on our behalf, by suffering for our sins, paying for our sins, and dying for us so He could then take up His body again and be resurrected.
So if we have faith in Jesus, and repent of our sins, and are baptized by immersion so our sins can be washed away, and receive the Holy Spirit in our lives and endure to the end following the Spirit and obeying the commandments, we can have eternal life and receive every good gift and return to the presence of God.
So that’s why we’re here, and that’s why we need the Church, prophets and apostles, the priesthood, scriptures, baptism, the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and to seek knowledge and love.
And that’s why God has, in these last days, called the prophet Joseph Smith and has given us The Book of Mormon and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why we’re blessed every week by renewing our covenants with God as we partake of the Sacrament and learn about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and love and eternal relationships from each other and from modern prophets and apostles.