Journal of Discourses 3:112-113, 368; 16:365; Eccl. 12:7; Gospel Truths, Cannon, p. 73
“These words of Alma as I understand them, do not intend to convey the thought that all spirits go back into the presence of God for an assignment to a place of peace or a place of punishment and before him receive their individual sentence. ‘Taken home to God,’ simply means that their mortal existence has come to an end, and they have returned to the world of spirits, where they are assigned to a place according to their works with the just or with the unjust, there to await the resurrection. ‘Back to God’ is a phrase which finds an equivalent in many other well-known conditions. For instance: a man spends a stated time in some foreign mission field. When he is released and returns to the United States, he may say, ‘It is wonderful to be back home’ ; yet his home may be somewhere in Utah or Idaho or some other part of the West.” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 2:84-86)