Many persons live and die and never know the law of Christ. Such persons will be taught the gospel in the spirit world. There they will have the opportunity to exercise faith and repent of their sins. Living proxies on the earth perform the needed ordinances in their behalf, and the blessings of salvation may be theirs.
Those who are not capable of understanding the gospel are not considered accountable. They, like little children, are “alive in Christ” (Moroni 8:12; see also D&C 29:49–50).
President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) explained: “They are redeemed without baptism and will go to the celestial kingdom of God, there, we believe, to have their faculties or other deficiencies restored according to the Father’s mercy and justice” (Answers to Gospel Questions, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., 5 vols. [1957–66], 3:21).