FALLEN IN A PIT

Imagine that you have dropped into a deep, dark pit with steep, slippery walls. You can't climb out and nothing in the pit can help you escape. How will you get out? First answer from class: pray! Always best to start here. Second answer: dig your way out -- this will be impossible because either the ground is impossible to dig through or you may not have hands to dig with. Third answer: try to jump out -- too tall, it's impossible. So how do we get out? Someone outside of the pit will have to help us. They can lower us a ladder to help us climb out.
President Joseph F. Smith: "This was precisely the condition that Adam placed himself and his posterity in, when he partook of the forbidden fruit. All being together in the pit, none could gain the surface and relieve the others. The pit was banishment from the presence of the Lord and temporal death, the dissolution of the body. And all being subject to death, none could provide the means of escape. Therefore, in His infinite Mercy, the Father heard the cries of His children and sent His Only Begotten Son, who was not subject to death nor to sin, to provide the means of escape. This He did through His infinite atonement and the everlasting gospel."
No matter how smart we are, how talented we are, how handsome we are or how pretty we are, we cannot get out of the pit alone. We need to rely on Jesus Christ to hand us a ladder.