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What Is Joy?
A common dictionary definition of joy is “a feeling of great pleasure [or] happiness.”20 In comparison, the Guide to the Scriptures describes joy as “a condition of great happiness [that results] from righteous living.”21 Interestingly, our gospel perspective helps us to understand that joy is more than a fleeting feeling or emotion; rather, it is a spiritual gift and a state of being and becoming. For this reason I described the sister who bore her testimony as filled with and radiating joy.

As a wise and loving father, Lehi taught his son Jacob that the very purpose of mortal life is for all people to have joy:

But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.22

Adam and Eve summarized the vital lessons they learned from the Eternal Father and from their own experience. Adam declared:

Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.23

And Eve said:

Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.24

The Father’s plan of happiness enables His children to obtain a physical body and gain mortal experience, to choose righteousness in the presence of evil and temptation, and to assist Heavenly Father with His great plan through honorable marriage and parenthood.25 Ultimately, at the time of our resurrection, “the spirit and the body [are] to be united never again to be divided, that they might receive a fulness of joy.”26

Joy primarily pertains to mortality and eternity; fun pertains only to mortality.