Tackling Heavenly Mother Myths: Why She Is Important to the Plan of Salvation

Myth: We don’t talk about Heavenly Mother because She isn’t important to understanding the Plan of Salvation.

Fact: The Plan of Salvation is not just the plan of the Father, it is also the plan of our Heavenly Mother. 

Elder M. Russel Ballard testified that “we are part of a divine plan designed by Heavenly Parents who love us.”(1) Other Church leaders have taught of Heavenly Mother’s involvement in the various stages of the Plan of Salvation.

Both Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother parented us in the premortal life. Elder Bruce R. McConkie taught that, “We were born as the spirit children of Celestial Parents long before the foundations of this world were laid.”(2) Similarly, President Joseph F. Smith taught that “man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body.”(3) Boyd K. Packer suggested that in the development of our characters in the premortal existence, “our Heavenly Mother was perhaps particularly nurturing.”(4)

Together Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father created this world. The Women of Mormondom, edited by Sister Eliza R. Snow, proclaims that the “eternal Mother [is] the partner with the Father in the creation of worlds.”(5) More recently Sister Patricia T. Holland, wife of Elder Jeffery R. Holland, taught that together our Heavenly Parents are involved in “our creation and the creation of all that surrounds us.”(6)

Now as we go about our life on earth, Heavenly Mother still cares and watches over us. President Harold B. Lee taught, “Sometimes we think the whole job is up to us, forgetful that there are loved ones beyond our sight who are thinking about us and our children. We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother, and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us when we do all we can.”(7)

When we finally return to our Heavenly Parents after our life on earth is finished, Heavenly Mother will be there to welcome us. Harold B. Lee taught that in heaven “we will find beauty such as mortal ‘eye hath not seen’; we will hear sounds of surpassing music which mortal ‘ear hath not heard.’ Could such a regal homecoming be possible without the anticipatory arrangements of a Heavenly Mother?”(8)

Heavenly Mother designed the Plan of Salvation with Heavenly Father, and She has been and will be involved every step of the way. 

1. Russell Ballard, When Thou Art Converted: Continuing Our Search for Happiness (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 62. 
2. Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p.516-517.
3. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith [1998], 335. Footnote 1.
4. As quoted in A Mother There.
5. As quoted in A Mother There.
6. Patricia Holland, “Filling the Measure of Your Creation,” 1989.
7. Lee, Harold B, as quoted in “Mother in Heaven,” Gospel Topics Essay, churchofjesuschrist.org.
8. Neal A. Maxwell, Presidency of the Seventy, “The Women of God,” April 1978 General Conference.