In Mosiah 2:41, he says,
“And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness.”
This shows that we can obtain the fullness of happiness with God, and briefly mentions what we need to do to reach that state of happiness.

To better explain this, I will use an example of chocolate.
Some of us love chocolate, and when we indulge ourselves in it, it is heaven on earth. A revolutionary idea comes along to turn this syrup into a bar and now nothing can satisfy us any more because we now have what we love, in a compact portable form, and without mess. Down the track, a new flavour is made and we find that it tastes better than the other chocolate bar. If we were offered either of the two bars, we would pick the new one.
In this example, we become happier with the new ideas of chocolate from the syrup into a bar, and then again with different flavours. We find ourselves enjoying the new form of chocolate each time and this leads to the misconception that we are now, as I just mentioned, happier. Though true to the extent that we are happier with the new form factors, the matter of fact is, we are only just as happy as we were before, only now in a new medium. What used to give us bliss is no longer in that previous form, but in a new form, and this is how the misconception is caused.

Applying this further in our lives, some of the things we did in the past such as playing games, clubbing, teasing others, may not be as joyful anymore as to reading scriptures, chatting with friends at dinners, or helping others do things. In each state, we have only found ourselves enjoying something else and no longer as much to the prior. We play a game, we finish the game, it isn’t as fun anymore and we no longer have that satisfaction. We are introduced with a new game, and our satisfactions are met again. Again, the misconception lies here; we are happier than before as we have new breathe of life, but only just as happy as ever because we are in the moment of enjoyment of a game. Until the new game was introduced, we would have never felt the sense of being happier than before.

Now this leads me to my next question; what determines our true happiness? Another way of saying this is; what is perfect happiness?
In the example above, the old game provided that perfect happiness, only for something new to arrive and become the new perfection. With this understanding, when we used to go clubbing, drinking, and partying out with our friends, that was what we considered to be our perfect moment in life; carpe diem. Now we start to break things down, was there are need for the drinking? And when we understand what drinking does to us and decide that it is not something that we want, this ingredient of amusement is no longer our perfect joy because we now understand and know more. We find it more enjoyable now to just dance and talk, or to substitute dancing with other things such as swimming, biking, or walking, or even doing it all on its own. We have come to understand a greater joy, but nevertheless, our joy is only as much as before, but in a new medium. What determines our happiness is what we develop to enjoy and like.

A man who hasn’t lived a chaste life and only enjoyed the pleasures of it may consider this to very well be his haven where nothing brings him more pleasure. When he is introduced to something new such as the gospel and comes to understand the significance of his actions, he has two options, follow it, or forget it. He may choose to forget about it and continue with his life and he is still ever more be in that perfect state of happiness, or he may choose to follow it and learn that his previous life is still his perfect happiness, or his new life is his perfect happiness. Until we learn, understand, and try something new, what we consider perfect may change or not. But if he finds that his new life is better, but decides to continue with his old life where he no longer finds the same joy he used to, this is ignorance and is something we should be careful of.
Going back to what I mentioned in the beginning, we know now that dwelling with God isn’t just eternal, but truly something that’s almost indescribable. And because we understand this, the things we do here on earth, although brings us such joy in our lives, it cannot measure up to the stature of glory. But until we discover something beyond that, what we do here is perfection.

So the question is not ‘what is true happiness?’, but ‘where do we find true happiness?’ Where one person may find it in one thing, someone else may find it in another. In contrary to what I mentioned just a moment ago, my true happiness isn’t just dwelling with God, but dwelling with my family, and maybe my own one day, and my friends. True friends are like family, as Prophet Joseph Smith wrote to Emma in one of his letters, “but you must comfort yourself knowing that God is your friend in heaven and that you have one true and living friend on earth, your husband.”
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is family, and understanding that concept of family, my true joys in life is just being with family and later complete with God. So where do you find true happiness?

And I leave you with this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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