One friend mentioned that she might not be so interested in heaven if it’s just harps and clouds all the time, Sunday on repeat forever. This friend specifically asked about pets and eating in heaven among other things. Here is my response:
Lol. All I can say is study the teachings of Joseph Smith all you can. Look up Truman G Madsen lectures on Joseph.
Heaven is a lot of work and that scares people. Brigham Young said if the streets in heaven are paved good, it was the saints who paved them.
There’s also eternal parenting (can you count the stars?) and creating worlds out of broken down unorganized matter.
Imagine having mastery of every science and knowing all history and psychology to the point that you can with confidence predict the future of individuals and societies. Imagine having command of every musical instrument.
Imagine knowing all people, their names, their stories, and earning their friendship, and helping them progress to greater levels of joy until they have a fullness.
Here is the deal: there is no such thing as permanent Sunday. Sunday is when we reorient ourselves to the cosmos, to the more real eternal world. It is a day God rested from his labors. What’s the point of permanent rest? There is none. Not even for God. He rests one in 7, not 7 in 7.
The notion that heaven is a boring place of singing dull hymns with uninterested neighbors is a lie of Satan.
Eating? Jesus ate fish with his apostles after he was resurrected. Perhaps you eat depending on what company you’re in, weather you’re helping mortals that day or planning with fellow gods that day.
Pets? Joseph Smith said the animals in the book of Revelation are both literal and figurative. Hugh Nibley says, drawing upon info from ancient documents, and ideas from evolutionary biology seen on this planet, not to mention animals evolving on other planets, that there are countless types of animals in heaven, such that we can’t even imagine all that we will see there.
Heaven is a real place. It is a series of planets crowned with glory (intelligence, light, and truth). In the system of planets we belong to (MWG likely), the heaven planets are those located near planet Kolob. Further, there are telestial (like our earth), terestrial, and celestial planets.
The residents of those planets have powerful bodies, to the degree of glory they attain. The highest glory includes the bodily privilege of procreation, a divine power which we now have some access to test us (here is divine power, will they handle it?). Brigham Young said every person (men and woman) who reaches the ‘unspeakable attainment’ of exaltation in a celestial world, will be made as beautiful as the angels (male and female) that surround the throne of God.
We could go on and on, but suffice it to say that the new testament passage put it well when it said we can’t even begin to imagine how awesome heaven will be.
Also, read life everlasting by Duane Crowther.
Here is the first of a lecture series by Truman g Madsen which will help shed light on the subject further: Click here