1/8/2025 - Week 25 - The original 12 creator Gods

Don't worry about the email title, it'll make sense in a minute.

Anyways, this week was a real interesting one. 

On Monday, I got hardcore carried by my teammate in some Scramble-style Disc Golf (reppin 15 under par 😎). We also were able to teach our friends Olivia and Brian about the Law of Chastity and they said they are interested in getting married, which is awesome!

On Tuesday we had our new Mission President announced (I'm pretty sure the Church News has already released this by now) and His name is President Rasmussen of Draper, Utah. He seems like a real wholesome and nice guy which are two pretty good attributes in a leader. 

We walked by some cool old car museums (I don't know what kinds, I'm not a car guy... And I forgot to take a picture). We also taught the Plan of Salvation to a few of our friends which is pretty cool.

Thursday was Zone Conference where I got to see some of my mission friends (i.e. Elder Cook, Eldé Sainsbury, cool people like that). 

Friday brought the longest Oil Change I think has ever been done in the history of Dead Dinosaurs. We were stuck there for forever, and then we needed to drop of a bike to elders at the bottom of our Zone so we were busy little bees.

Saturday was where the title of the Email comes from (so congrats if you read this far, if you just skipped here.... Boo, that's lame). Anyways, we met a referral who we were already skeptical about because on the phone earlier in the week he told us quote "I've got some stuff I'd like to show you and talk about with you guys." So we came into this lesson thinking we set up a lesson for a guy to Bible Bash us out of existence, probably a pastor who has nothing better to do with his Saturday. Nope. Not even close. We get into the lesson and brother is visibly flustered and nervous. He tells us about how he was a hardcore drug user for years, but then he had a stroke (aka. near death experience) and a vision where his past family came to him and told him that there are a ton of Gods (correct), but there is one highest God (also correct), and there are also 12 creator Gods (not correct, what my Swahili friends would call Uwongo Mafundisho --> False Doctrine) and in his vision he was told he is one of the Creator Gods and now he can see "the other side" aka he can see spirits, what he calls "souls." And he has also apparently fought the Devil off with a bible, which he showed us video "proof" of on his phone (it was a weird, bad quality video of him in his room with literally nothing else, in slow-mo so everything sounds super deep and scary. Least convincing thing I've ever seen. He said he wanted help understanding it, but he really just wanted us to tell him that he isn't crazy and a crackhead. That's important to remember, this dude was a literal crackhead, meth head, you name it, and he kept saying "you gotta take the drugs outta the equation man" because he was apparently a few months sober, so that means the vision he had 10 YEARS AGO couldn't possibly be a result of the drugs. We pretty much said in a very nice way that we don't believe him and that what he said doesn't align with Doctrinal truths. Apparently we're gonna meet with him again because he said he can prove he's a creator God because he can make orbs (which he said are families? IDK how that one works) come out of the clouds where they are hiding. It was a wild ride, and that's as much of it as I could explain. Props to you if you read all that.

Spiritual Thought (aka actual Doctrine)

A real goal is the true desire of your heart and a vision which you have of your future. You need to act on your Goal to turn it from a goal to a reality. For all good goals, relying on Christ and getting to work are the best things you can possibly do. This is 1) because if you rely on yourself instead of Christ, you will get nothing noteworthy done. To actually fulfill the desires of Heavenly Father, you must rely on Christ or you will fail. And 2) You have to get to work because Christ will direct your paths and lead you to success, kinda like He's the GPS to get you to your destination. With GPS, if you don't start your car, you obviously will never get where you are going, and if you do not follow the directions it gives to you, you will not make it where you want to be. These same principles apply because if we are not getting to work and doing things, we wont be able to do anything for the Lord's Kingdom or fulfill His desires for us. Likewise, if we do not act on the promptings we receive from the Spirit, it's like ignoring the GPS route, it will lead you down forbidden and unhelpful paths in your life. I hope that made sense, I'm kinda just winging it based off a devotional we had last night.

LOVE YOU ALL!
Elder Parker Hansen

Zone Conference 

Some funny duck statues that make me laugh

Elder Simpson's best angle