First, the Mormon Church has a lay priesthood. Every worthy husband and father holds the Melchizedek Priesthood, which enables them to protect, lead, and bless their families in ways unfathomable to people outside the Church. Although Mormons use standard medical care on a regular basis, a priesthood blessing by the laying on of hands can provide a miraculous healing in an emergency. Your girlfriend’s parents have had experience with this and hate to think of their daughter establishing a home and raising children without the priesthood power there. You can read about the Mormon priesthood at the following link: http://www.mormonwiki.com/Priesthood, and http://www.mormonwiki.com/Priesthood_Blessing.

Secondly, but no less importantly, is that worthy Mormon couples are able to marry in a Mormon temple for this life, but also for eternity. Eternal marriage is a gateway to exaltation in the highest kingdom of heaven. If your girlfriend’s parents are worthy Mormons, then they have been married in the temple and value the eternal marriage covenant, and have had great spiritual experiences in their marriage because of it. Their children are also sealed to them for eternity, and they wish the same for their daughter.

The best thing you can do to build a relationship with your girlfriend’s parents is to meet with Mormon missionaries. Then you have two choices: 1) You can ask God if Mormonism is true, receive a yes answer and join the Church; or 2) you can decide that Mormonism is not for you. If you choose #2, you will have a much greater understanding of your girlfriend’s religion. If you choose #2, you should decide before marriage how you will raise your children. You should promise your girlfriend’s parents that you will never stand in the way of her activity in the Church, encourage and allow her to serve in her congregation and take her children with her. Then, perhaps, you will be accepted into the family.

I’ve been pretty blunt, but I hope, helpful. If you are really in love with your girlfriend, then these steps are the ones you should take. Oh, and please expect to keep the law of chastity (http://www.mormonwiki.com/Law_of_Chastity) in your pre-marital relationship. Purity in the relationship will show the parents how much you respect and honor their daughter. Good luck.

Jesus died for all the sins committed by everyone who has or ever will live on this earth. His atonement covers the sins of Adam and saves all innocents (little children; people who sin with no knowledge). However, without the repentance of the sinner, it is as if no atonement were made for that specifice individual. A person who will not repent must suffer for his own sins. In the Book of Mormon, Mosiah 2:38, it says, “Therefore if that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth cause him to shrink from the presence of the Lord, and doth fill his breast with guilt, and epain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.”

And in the Doctrine and Covenants, it says, “Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I; Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink— Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men” (D&C 19:15-19).

As to your last question, there are many mansions in heaven, and though most people who have lived on the earth will inherit a kingdom of glory, not all kingdoms of heaven are the same. You can learn about this by reading Doctrine and Covenants, Section 76, Joseph Smith’s vision of the kingdoms of heaven. (http://www.lds.org/?lang=engscriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng).

Or did He die for the sin nature that I inherited from Adam, opening the way for me to repent of my current sins?

Finally, Is this a fair analogy: “Jesus’ death ‘opened the door’ for us to go to heaven…like he paid for everyone’s ticket to get in…and now it is up to us how we will live in that heaven as to how much we repent and live by the Commandments of God.”

I sincerely thank you for your attention.