Hi, my name is Gerry Hagan and I have been following the Marvelous Work and a Wonder, and its Messenger, Christopher Marc Nemelka, since around 2014/2015.
I was born in Belfast in 1957, a “blue baby,” who the doctors and nurses attending the home birth, which almost killed my mother, thought I had been born dead until they noticed a slight twitch and realised I wasn’t. They proceeded to give me an injection, of what I presume was adrenaline, straight into my heart. I have a theory that this was the cause of my anxious nature that I have had all my life. I was the youngest of a family of six, two sisters and three brothers. I think that due to the difficult birth and the fact that I was the youngest, I was a little spoiled and a bit of a mummy’s boy.
In 1969, that all came crashing down with my mother dying very suddenly and the period of social unrest known in Ireland as “The Troubles,” literally exploding onto the streets of Belfast. This happened when I was 12 years old and, by the time I was 14/15, my stable homelife had fallen apart and I was basically living on the streets in a conflict zone.
It was a strange time growing up in the late 1960s in Belfast. On the one hand, we were being influenced by the music and the social changes and influences of the 1960s. In the area that I grew up, and in many working class areas of Belfast at the time, we were influenced by the political/sectarian ideologies that were promoted by the warring factions in these areas. I got involved in the conflict somewhat, but began seeing the ugliness of violence and its effect on individuals, including myself, and communities. Luckily for me, the hippy influences that I had been exposed to won out and I removed myself from the situation to try and get a balance back in my life. There’s more to this story, but I’m not here to tell that story. I just mention it to give you an idea of my background.
Having left Belfast, I went to London and began working in the catering trade, the reason being, it offered live-in accommodations. I had begun drinking at a very early age—as it was, and still is to a large extent—almost seen as a rite of passage in Ireland. Working in the catering trade meant I always had access to alcohol, so I spent many years drinking and partying and getting myself into trouble of one kind or another. I moved back to Ireland and continued my alcohol-fueled and -obsessed lifestyle. I ended up living in an area that was a seaside/holiday resort. Although it was in Northern Ireland/The North of Ireland, it had largely been unaffected by The Troubles. Life here was as normal as was possible in that part of the world at that time. There was more an emphasis on having fun than fighting over religion.
It was in this area that I started experimenting with psychedelic drugs, mainly magic mushrooms and marijuana/hashish. This opened my mind to things that I had never even considered before, other religions and cultures, different perspectives and narratives. I had been born into an Irish catholic home and bore the burdens of their teachings, and to some extent probably still do. This was the point in my life I began to question things somewhat. Throughout all my wanderings and wonderings, something about the simple message of Love attributed to the biblical character Jesus Christ always appealed to something deep down inside of me. However, I did not believe that this message was confined to the “Christian” religions, as I found similar messages and feelings of peace in other religions such as Buddhism and eastern philosophies. I was still drinking heavily at times during this period, and although seeking, I was never finding peace. I developed what is known as a “Messiah Complex” during this period and actually thought that I could be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and that one day the world would come to realise this and my message of peace love and understanding would save the planet. You can imagine how fucked up my life became for a while on that trip. There must have been something in the air in the area I lived in, as, over the years, I came across several people from the same area who had had the same trip.
I eventually got a little bit more balance back in my life and started looking for other explanations for my feelings/thoughts. It was at this time that I came into contact with missionaries of the Mormon/LDS church. Their story of a restoration of the original church as set up by Jesus Christ, and directed by him through living prophets, appealed to me. I was suspicious of all organised religion at that point of my life. But the fact that this church was supposedly a living church, based on continuous revelation, eased my concerns, as I believed, “If this was true, The Lord would reveal to his prophets where they were going wrong and the necessary changes could/would be made.” They had to convince me that this church was indeed receiving revelation and this was done by having me read the Book of Mormon.
Reading this book convinced me that there was something about it that spoke to the yearnings I had inside for peace/justice/love/respect and guidance. I was baptised very quickly and devoted my life to that church for the next 25 years. There were things that I didn’t feel comfortable with in the church`s doctrine and history, but the fact that it claimed to be a living, growing, breathing church, I believed that The Lord would sort all his out. However, after 25 years, I witnessed no sign of this movement. And indeed, if anything, the Church appeared to be moving further away from what I understood to be the teachings of Jesus Christ. Also, my mental health was suffering from my efforts to live up to the unrealistic/impossible expectations of this church and the fact that I was having to deny those things inside of me that I held precious to life, love, and liberty.
Around 2014/2015, I was going through this struggle. I stumbled across a video posted online about a lady called Ida Smith, a descendant of Hyrum Smith—the brother of the claimed founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. In this post, Ida spoke about a book that had been published called “The Sealed Portion—The Final Testament of Jesus Christ,” a book that had been prophesied of in the Book of Mormon. It was available free of charge on the internet, so I downloaded it and read it. It blew my mind and eased my heart. It released me from the feelings of guilt I was suffering from in regards to me struggling with the doctrines and history of the Mormon/LDS Church. In my own eyes, and in the eyes of the church leaders involved in trying to get me on the “right path,” the problem lay within me and was nothing to do with faults in the church. This book afforded me the peace and hope that I was looking for in life. Indeed, there were/are problems within me; but many of them stemmed from the LDS Church’s teachings and religion in general.
However, reading The Sealed Portion was only the start of a journey, as it was written specifically to appeal to those feelings that I had inside me, as previously mentioned. The Mormons/LDS Church had played an old trick on me known as “bait and switch.” They appealed to the better aspects of my humanity through the Book of Mormon and switched my allegiance from those principals, to that of following its leaders blindly and unquestionably. Reading this book, The Sealed Portion, freed me to read/consider and digest other sources of information made available by the same sources as the Book of Mormon originally came from.
From these sources, I have been given new perspectives and new information that I would never have been able to come to on my own. This information has provided me with answers to all the questions I had and indeed answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had. The extent of the information given through the Marvelous Work and a Wonder is so all-encompassing and comprehensive that it would be impossible for me to say I know that everything I have learned is true. I’m not intelligent enough to be able to say that. What I can say is that everything that I have learned makes perfect sense and anything that they have said would happen, has happened. The truths that they reveal can be challenging. And making the changes in yourself and the life you lead/strive for can cause pain. But I have never been more at ease with life and its challenges as I am now. And that is owed to the teachings of The Marvelous Work and a Wonder and it’s Messenger Christopher Marc Nemelka.
Gerry Hagan
My name is Joseph Michael Goddard and I am 49 years old at the time of this writing. […]
I was raised in the LDS church, born under the covenant, the sixth of eight children (5 girls […]
