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Many years ago, but really no time at all had passed for him, for he could visit all times and all places on this earth, Drew Yankovic had been reconfirmed by an angel in a motel room in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri after receiving from God a copy of the Sealed Book of Mormon. Shortly thereafter, back in 1324 in Burma, he met his soon to be wife and traveling companion, Catherine, the eldest daughter of a man whom had given him food and lodging many years earlier in his previous home in France. Jesus himself appeared to them and married them, and they spent their honeymoon in Paris, then part of it in Venice. Soon, they had gone to 1943, to some prominent WWII battles, to help and minister to many, and there, in a tent, three angels ordained him to the office of elder. Shortly afterward, after traveling to the Battle of Okinawa, he raised a dead US soldier to life and showed him how he could join the RLDS church, pointing him to the local RLDS Chaplain. He knew this was the will of God. This was all a long, long time ago, years ago, and now Drew and Catherine sat, ageless and still very much in love, on top of a tall, tall skyscraper watching the sunrise, on a new day in 2037. They were way outside of the borders of Zion, but now Drew and Catherine were assigned to seek people who had not yet taken the Mark of the Beast and bring them to Zion. After a few hours they descended together, invisibly, onto a very busy city street. Their 12 year old son Nick and 8 year old daughter Sylvia were playing in a nearby park, invisible to everyone around them. They were both baptized and confirmed Members of the Restructured Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Catherine was 8 months pregnant with their newest daughter. Nick and Sylvia were both smart and knowledgeable, wise and intelligent. Nick had limited ability to travel where he wanted in time, and wherever on earth he chose, but Sylvia had to stay with her parents, because she had not yet reached the age of 11, when she would be old enough to share some of Nick’s abilities. But by the time she did reach 11, Nick would have greater abilities and greater responsibilities at age 15 than Sylvia would at 11, but she would eventually catch up to him when they got older. Safe in the park, the two children played, as their parents went into the subway, paying the fare with their special cards that would circumvent the need for the Mark of the Beast, that God had given them and Nick for this purpose. As always, Drew wore his backpack, with many things he needed in it, and dragged behind him his large suitcase, which held his time machine. These things never became a burden, either to him or to Catherine who carried in addition to these a huge purse with many things she needed in it. She did not wear make-up or perfume, but she did have many things in her purse she needed for her travels. Once onboard the subway (they were now visible to all), they found a young man who looked to be in his early 20’s who did not have the Mark. They assumed (they could talk to each other by reading each other’s thoughts and could see when someone had or had not the Mark even though the Mark was usually invisible to the naked eye) that he had slipped onboard the subway without paying, and that he was good at doing so. Catherine struck up a conversation with him, not letting on that they were Christians, as there were many spies about, and introduced him to her husband and indicated that he should get off at the next subway stop with them. So he did. They surfaced and walked through some alleys together, talking freely and openly about their faith and testifying to him about the truth of the Fullness of the Gospel and the Restructured Church, now called Jesus Christ. He was hungry to know more. So they broke the bread of life to him, reading to him out of many Latter Day scriptures. By this time, he desired baptism, so they took him to an abandoned swimming pool prayed that God would fill it with water, and it was instantly filled, with all the scum and trash instantly removed from it, the cracks and holes repaired. Drew baptized him in the shallow end, then a holy man on this errand came from afar and together he and Drew confirmed him a member of Jesus Christ. Then they started on their long journey to Zion. When they left the swimming pool, it returned to its abandoned, trashy, scummy crack and hole-ridden state as before. On a long forgotten freeway, a remnant of the days before the nuclear attacks and invasion of many years ago, they found a car that was mostly intact and prayed that God would spiff it up and put it in good working order. With Drew behind the wheel, who had prayed for keys to appear in his backpack that would start the car, and they had, they were off on the first leg of their journey to Zion. (Their kids and the young man were in the back seat.)
* * *
A roadblock. Typical of a statist system. Hours ago they had gotten onto a freeway that was actually being used, and had had to take a detour due to a huge fissure caused by those huge earthquakes of years past, which all cars going that way had to take, onto a highway, or a road, and here was a typical roadblock. Normally the family would disappear and abandon the car but the young man, Andrew, was their charge, so Drew and Catherine prayed, and they mysteriously let their car pass with a wave of the gruff-looking guard’s hand, and they were through.
“What in the world? They have scanners! They instantly know when someone doesn’t have the Mark! How on earth did we get through?! That’s impossible!” Andrew exclaimed.
“Prayer is a mighty weapon.” Drew said simply.
“Wow. Just….wow.” Andrew said.
Many hours later they had been compelled to go off-road because there was no direct route to Zion and they came to a raging river, that was wide and bridgeless, all the bridges having gone out long ago. Drew prayed that the car could hover right over the river, and it did.
Drew and Catherine took pictures of them going over the river with their digital cameras. “This is quite lovely,” Catherine said.
“It’s even lovelier with you by my side,” said Drew, and he took her hand. She blushed.
“I got three Yahtzees in a row!” Nick exclaimed. He was playing a hand-held Yahtzee game he had acquired a few years ago, oblivious to what was going on around him. “I just beat my old high score, and the game isn’t over yet!”
“That’s terrific, son. I’m proud of you,” Drew said encouragingly. Sylvia was asleep.
Once over the river, they went through some large woods, then bramble bushes, then right through a large field. This all took about two hours. The child was still asleep, but the older brother was now raptly paying attention to his surroundings, having put the game up a long time ago, saying things like “cool” and “neato”. Once they had passed a bear who had been minding his own business, and had not even so much as glanced their way. Andrew had been a bit unnerved by that. Soon they crossed a highway, or a road, then crossed another. The third road they came to, they turned left onto, for Drew knew that it was going in the direction he needed to go. Drew followed this highway for four hours and eventually got onto another abandoned freeway. The freeway seemed very eerie to Andrew. They had to drive around derelict husks and shells of cars some with skeletons still in their clothes. Andrew hoped night wouldn’t fall as they were on this road, but alas, it did. Andrew squirmed in his seat as he saw pock marks from a war-ravaged freeway and dead skeletons everywhere in cars and out of them. But no one else in the car was bothered. Nick was taking a film with his camcorder. Sylvia was awake now, coloring a picture. Andrew was amazed at how she stayed within the lines. They hovered over a bombed out overpass, and later hovered over a crumbled overpass that blocked their passage, once over the freeway, now on top of it. Nick was still filming. Later they got off at a derelict exit and parked their car in a modern ghost-town, and all slept until morning.
Morning came, and with it a dust storm, a big one, with nuclear rain that made Andrew very glad they hadn’t left their car. They waited it out, Sylvia coloring again and Nick taking panoramic shots of the dust and rain with his camcorder. After the dust settled and the rain stopped, they ate a hearty breakfast Drew had packed, each fresh hot part of it wrapped up in miraculous pouches that kept them that hot and that fresh. Everyone ate well, then they got back onto the freeway. Somehow, 5 hours later the derelict freeway connected to a busy and congested freeway that was one-way., with the other freeway going in the other direction five miles distant from it. Fortunately, the one Drew wanted was the one they were on. A band of motorcyclists wended their ways through all the congestion. Some cars they harassed with machine guns and knives, stealing many possessions which they kept in their motorcycle’s saddlebags. Drew and Catherine, Andrew and the kids all prayed for protection. The marauding motorcycle gangs left them alone. Traffic was slow, often jamming for hours. No problem for Sylvia and Nick, who kept busy, either with coloring, snapping pictures, taking video, playing the ‘alphabet game’ with the others in the car, or sharing the Yahtzee game, or playing BINGO, or countless other things they found to do. As for Andrew, boredom set in. He rested his head on his left hand, absentmindedly staring out the window at nothing in particular. Drew and Catherine were talking to each other in their minds. Night fell, and people started getting out of their cars making trouble. Again the group prayed for protection. The rabble rousers and troublemakers left them alone. Traffic was at a dead stand-still, so they locked their doors, prayed for protection, and slept. They had eaten again earlier in the day, a good supper, which Catherine had packed.
When morning came, horns were honking all over the place. Traffic had started to move again, so Drew started the car, and moved with it. Six hours later (they all skipped breakfast) they got off at an exit and ate a hearty meal at a high-end sit down restaurant, using one of their special cards to pay for the meal. Then they all stayed at a hotel, again using one of those cards. They were all so exhausted, they all slept ‘til the next morning. There was a free continental breakfast for hotel guests, so they ate that, and then found that someone had stolen their car. “What do we do now?” Asked Andrew.
“We pray…,” said Catherine.
“…And wait,” finished Drew.
So they all prayed long and mightily for a way to get to their next destination from here, only, silently, and in their hearts, for if spies caught them praying, they could all lose their heads. So they prayed as they meandered their way through the crowds.
Three hours later they were sitting on a park bench when a big SUV pulled up driven by a man who Drew and Catherine instantly saw did not have the Mark. “Hey, you guys, get in!” He said. They all did.
The man introduced himself as Big Al, and said he was in prayer and an angel appeared to him and told him to go pick up a family and a young man and take them all to Zion, “and told me and showed me right where you would all be. Sure enough, I go there to that place and there you all are.”
On the nine-hour circuitous route to Zion, some off-road, they found out Big Al was not a Restorationist, but after they explained the gospel to him in its fullness, he desired baptism, so they parked at a lake. A holy man on this errand came to baptize him, and he and Drew confirmed him a member of Jesus Christ.
Then they were on their way to the borders of Zion. They arrived at the beautiful city at exactly midnight. They drove to and parked at the Temple in Independence. They all went in. Jesus had not come suddenly to his Temple yet, but he had appeared to some in it in non-glory appearances, including to Drew and Catherine. He did not this time, but now all six of them were freely able to worship and praise God! They lodged in the City, being treated almost like royalty. Andrew got a nice hair-cut, shave, manicure and pedicure. Big Al saw a good chiropractor and masseuse who helped his back tremendously, and then was administered to for other health problems, receiving instant healing. They all ate well, and slept gorgeously. They tarried in Zion for many, many days, then Al and Andrew parted company with the time travelers, who went immediately to Spain during the Dark Ages., during the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
* * *
Five hours later, Nick was deep in the Ocean, off the coast of Spain, invisibly using his camcorder to capture footage of underwater cities of good Nephilim fae.
Meanwhile, Sylvia was playing visibly among some Catholic village children, while Catherine and Drew were in the vicinity, talking with a young Cathar named Prescott, tearing down his gnostic beliefs and teaching him the Higher ways of God, inviting him to join a society of hidden Holy Men who are frequently visited by John the Beloved and the Three Nephites from America, and they explained what and where America was, beyond the Azores, to him, and explained many other things to him beyond his current level of understanding. “And if you don’t join that hidden society of Free Men, you will be inquisited in two week’s time, you and your wife and your children,” Drew stated emphatically.
“This is the salvation of both you and your family. You can all eventually join this society,” Catherine added.
“Is it the Freemasons?” Prescott asked nervously. I’ll never join them, sorry. They claim to have occult knowledge like that. Are you revealing Masonic secrets to me?”
“No, no, a thousand times NO,” Drew emphasized. “The Masons are satanic, with the power of satan as their ally. THIS society of Truly Free Men worketh the power of God. You needn’t worry about being inducted into any dark covenants with us. We know none. The Masons and Jesuits, rose Croix, Templars, etc., seek to overthrow all free governments. We seek the opposite.”
“Hm..can I be given three days to think about it and discuss it with my wife?”
“Sure, you do have that much time left at least,” Catherine assured.
“Ok, thanks.” Prescott said. “See you in three days.”
“We’ll meet you right here,” Drew said.
With that, they departed.
“Do you think they’ll make the right decision, he and his wife?” Catherine wondered out loud.
“Let’s hope so, and pray they do,” Drew said calmly. “Well, now we have three days to explore this place. Let’s get our kids”
Soon they picked up Sylvia from the nearby village, and took an invisible swim in the coastal Ocean to retrieve Nick. Then they all flew invisibly to Barcelona for a three-day tour. During that tour of beautiful Barcelona, by night, invisibly, and supernaturally bright candlelight, Catherine, Drew, Sylvia and Nick made a search of the biggest library in Barcelona and learned much, each learning according to their specialized bents. Then they all got on their laptops. Catherine went on FaithBook, Drew to TruthTube, and Nick and Sylvia both browsed Heavenlypedia, listening to their music with headphones. Sylvia was presently listening to Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, while at the same time Nick was listening to Love Like This by Lauren Daigle. After a few more hours, they snuffed and collected their special candles, put their laptops away, exited the huge library, and lodged at a lovely inn in the heart of Barcelona. They all got a very good night’s sleep and were refreshed in the morning.
They continued those activities all three days, touring and dining in Barcelona by day and reading in the spacious library by night, and then they hurriedly flew back to where they had come from, again invisibly, and met Prescott, who brought his wife and children with him to the meeting.
“The answer is yes,” Prescott said happily. “We will join your society.”
“Then come with us,” said Catherine. Their children, Sylvia and Nick, were with them.
They went through forest and over field and plain, and crossed footbridges over raging streams, and went by horse and pony-back the rest of the way to where three Holy men stood waiting by a pool of pure water to baptize and confirm them, except for the children who were below 8, whom they would raise, feely teaching them the tenets of the Sealed Book of Mormon and of the Holy Church until they could be baptized, into Jesus Christ, then they were quickly inducted into their Holy Society and changed physically as the rest of them were already. Then Prescott and his family, with their uninducted little ones looking on in amazement, parted ways with Drew and Catherine, Nick and Sylvia. The children of Drew and the children of Prescott had gotten along very well. One of those children Sylvia had met, a fellow girl, in the village, and they had played games together. She was nine, now inducted into the Holy Society. She told Sylvia, “thank you for your friendship” and they hugged good-bye. “I will never forget you,” Sylvia said. “Or your brothers and sisters. They are all dear to me.”
With that, they all parted ways, and all wandered the countryside, taking it all in, Nick visible, as they all were, while invisibly holding his camcorder, loving the captured views of the country. They lodged at the house of a widow, whom they befriended, and she was an elderly widow, who quietly kept her faith at home, neither a Cathar, a Bogomil or a Latin Rite Catholic. Knowing she would die in peace and eventually progress to the third level of Celestial Glory someday, they treated her with kindness and the utmost respect. And for all the additional days they spent in Spain they returned to lodge at her house. She would cook the most sumptuous meals and didn’t charge a penny for food or lodging. She was very given to hospitality. But soon, they parted ways with the kindhearted woman and traveled by horse and pony through France, lodging at castles, inns and people’s houses, sometimes paying a fair sum, sometimes for free, to Switzerland. They climbed a mountain to its summit and had a picnic there, the four of them. Drew and Catherine held hands. Then, suddenly, Catherine’s water broke and she painlessly gave birth to her second daughter, naming her Alice. Catherine let, Sylvia, then Nick, hold Alice for a while, then placed her in the arms of her proud father. They spent four years living as peasants in a small Swiss village and raising Alice to the age where she could comprehend time travel and being able to fly and become invisible. Drew worked as a miller, making fine flour and selling it to the villagers, and the family lived off the profits. Holy Men of the Order of Melchizedek would come to collect his tithes and offerings, and he would give 10 additional percent to the local peasant church. None in his family took their Communion, but they became respected visitors of the little congregation of villagers worshiping their God in the best way they knew how, worshipping God and praising Him without any interference from the Catholics. One year later, God put a little time machine, wired to only go where her parents were going, either her mother or her father, inside Drew’s backpack, and Drew gave it to Alice for her fifth birthday. Two holy men presented Alice with a little satchel to carry it in. Though Alice was still not baptized or confirmed, having not yet reached age eight, she had been born with some of her parent’s abilities, as had Nick and young Sylvia. She had practiced flying invisibly and incorporeally all over Switzerland with her mother for most of the last year. Now that she was five, and could read at a college level, play five instruments and do calc and trig, and had read the Bible, Book of Mormon, sealed Book of Mormon, and all eight volumes of RLDS Church History and much of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and a lot of the apocrypha and Psuedepigrapha and Gospel of Thomas, understanding it all, she was ready to be trained on using her time machine. But they had to start small, jumping ahead and behind in time for minutes, then hours, then a few days, then a few weeks ,until she got the hang of it. Finally, Drew gave his mill away to a worthy apprentice (who knew his secrets but did not share his special abilities) and the five of them went to the 1990’s, specifically AD 1997, to a comfortable Midwest town in the United States of America. Drew converted all the money he had earned selling flour to US Dollars by putting the mill money in his backpack and asking God to convert it to the proper currency. All told, it was a substantial sum. They bought a nice house and still had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars left over, which he kept in his backpack, giving his wife lots and lots of spending money weekly, and doling out 20.00 every two weeks to his 17 year old son and 13 year old daughter, who both lived purity culture. They joined the local RLDS Restoration Branch in town, putting their names on the rolls, presenting, except for Alice, valid certificates of baptism and Confirmation and letters of recommendation from elders who gave their credentials in the letters. It was unquestioned. Adjusting to modern life was rather easy. All the hardships of life in the Dark Ages were virtually gone. Drew got a job as a carpenter, and Catherine became a skilled Realtor. Nick got a job at the local Taco Bell. He grew quite fond of Chalupas. He and the family also ate quite frequently at McDonald’s and Wendy’s, and occasionally a Chiese Buffet in town. Alice, Nick and Sylvia continued to experiment and grow in their abilities. Nick became partial to regularly visiting to Old West and Civil War periods. Sylvia, because she wasn’t yet 15, needed her parent’s permission to visit Nauvoo in its heyday and witness the construction and Dedication of the Kirtland Temple in Ohio. These things, when she was granted permission to view them over and over, strengthened her faith. Once, Nick got shot badly at the battle of Antietam Creek, and came home bloody, wounded in the right leg. Lovingly admonishing him to, except when needed otherwise, always stay invisible and incorporeal in the heat of battle, Drew lovingly extracted the bullet, then administered to him, and his leg instantly healed and the wound closed, as if new. Then he told Nick to take a bath and wash the blood off. Drew had once made the same mistake at Flanders Field, and again at Guadalcanal, and Jesus Christ himself had healed him completely at those times, after Drew had both times tended to his wounds as best he could. Although immortal, he found he still had to be careful. He knew now that until Alice was of age, he and Catherine needed to protect her and watch over her, and command the angels to do the same, and pray also for God’s protection for that precious child. Practicing natural family planning, Drew and Catherine were not going to have another child until Alice was at least 10.
One time, the family was at the kitchen table watching TruthTube videos on Drew’s laptop, when Drew got a phone-call from the son of a friend who was dying of cancer. Telling his family to stay in the house, Drew became invisible, flew through the roof, and took to the skies, flying to the hospital and landing behind a dumpster and becoming visible, as he had done so many times, in so many cities and towns, or behind a hay-bale, or tool shack, phone-booth, or anything that would hide his ability to become invisible from the general public. Then he rushed into the hospital, asking the receptionist at the front desk where Fred Mallorey was staying, and in what room. She said he was in ICU and very few were allowed in there, only family and ministers. Drew told her he was an ordained minister, and showed his Elder’s card. She pressed her intercom and told them in that ICU unit the situation and to let him in. She asked him his name. “Drew Yankovic”. He said.
“Yes, his name is Drew…..Ok, I’ll send him up.”
Soon, he had ascended the elevator shaft incorporeally to his floor and walked out of the elevator when it opened, to his unit, then to his room. He knew the elevator car would be empty. He got there just in time. Fred was fading fast. He administered to him, asking anyone who didn’t believe he could be 100% cured of his stage 4 cancer to please leave the room. One nurse left in a huff, but the doctors, tecnicians, and the rest of the nurses, and his son Mike stayed. He could tell from their countenances they believed, though one was an atheist. He relished this opportunity to show this young man the reality of God. After the administration, Fred was completely awake, lucid and in charge of his faculties. Drew knew his cancer was gone, his insides, wherever the cancer had affected, were healed up and restored, and that the cancer would never return. He commanded the nurses to bring Fred some real food from the cafeteria and that Drew would pay double for the food. One hurried to obey, while the doctors, nurses and technicians checked him out and ran multiple tests for hours, finally releasing him after taking out all his IV’s, prescribing no medications, having him get dressed in street clothes, and giving him his walking papers, recommending that he come back in three weeks for more tests, which he agreed to do.
The atheistic doctor talked to Drew at length and Drew led him to faith in the Restoration. He was baptized and confirmed three weeks later, with one of the male technicians and two of the nurses.
* * *
When Nick was 19, Sylvia was 15 and Alice was 7, Sylvia was ready to take independent trips in time and place of her own election. Alice had taken to studying and studying the RLDS and LDS Doctrine and Covenants save for Doctrine and Covenants 132, which she had read once but it gave her the same kind of headache that RLDS DC 156 had, then going back in time with her parent’s permission to see the events of the DC and Church History actually happening, even the Revelations themselves being given. This strengthened Alice’s faith tremendously. She wasn’t allowed to go see the Book of Mormon history yet, or Bible, which Drew had done a little of, and had also beheld some Roman and Greek History. Catherine regularly visited ancient Carthage, Minoa and Atlantis, and had even witnessed Theseus slaying the Minotaur. Catherine and Drew had recently watched Joan of Arc fighting the English and then watched William Wallace and later The Bruce win Independence, then had travelled through nearly every phase of the American Revolution and went even further into the future and watched Martin Luther King, Jr. give his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, then went back and seen Martin Luther nail his 95 Theses to the Church Door in Wittenberg, then watched together as he said “Here I Stand, I can do none else, God help me”.
When Alice turned 8 (Nick and Sylvia were now 20 and 16), she was a little confused as to why she couldn’t be baptized at the restoration branch she attended, but must be baptized by her father. Her father explained that there was something more Alice needed to know, that the others at that Branch did not know, that the Sealed book of Mormon she had read since she could first read made their situation rather special and different from other Restorationists. Nick and Sylvia knew already. With that Alice acquiesced and Drew baptized, and a holy man on this errand and Drew confirmed. Once confirmed, and dry. After Baptism Alice had anew attitude when it came to the Scriptures. She devoured them. They made her hungry.
By now, Nick was courting a beautiful woman named Carmen. She had dark, straight long hair and was tall and pure and chaste, and he had met her at a local Church Reunion. She only lived 15 minutes away from them by walking, and he had a driver’s license, and a yellow car. A year later he proposed to her. He was 21, Sylvia was 17 and Alice 9.
During their engagement he kept promising Carmen that when they were married he would take her off to faraway places and they would help people in need, and there would be danger and excitement, and that he had abilities he couldn’t reveal to her until they were married. This all intrigued Carmen, for she knew he was honest, and had integrity, so he wouldn’t lie to her or promise something he couldn’t deliver. He promised to make her life more interesting than she could possibly imagine. Drew married them, then two holy men appeared to Carmen and Nick 5 days after their honeymoon began, took them to the future to a Zion Temple and their marriage was sealed there so that they could have progeny in heaven, then they returned to 1997 AD, and for all five of these days Nick had been showing her his laptop, camcorder footage, digital camera shots, time machine (though not yet letting her use it) and letting her read his diaries and other writings and spiritual experiences. He was quite a philosopher, theologian, scholar, scientist, mathematician and historian. She was frankly astonied by all this. It was better than she had hoped or imagined!
The two holy men inducted her into the same ways as Drew and the family, then she too was changed like them. They gave Carmen a backpack and suitcase with time machine, taught her how to use it, gave her a purse, and then ten days later, they were ready to go out on their REAL honeymoon to Atlantis, then to Nauvoo in its heyday, then 30 days after that, they were ready to start out on their own adventures, completely independent from Drew and Catherine. Now Catherine and Drew just had the two girls to raise.
* * *
* * *
A roadblock. Typical of a statist system. Hours ago they had gotten onto a freeway that was actually being used, and had had to take a detour due to a huge fissure caused by those huge earthquakes of years past, which all cars going that way had to take, onto a highway, or a road, and here was a typical roadblock. Normally the family would disappear and abandon the car but the young man, Andrew, was their charge, so Drew and Catherine prayed, and they mysteriously let their car pass with a wave of the gruff-looking guard’s hand, and they were through.
“What in the world? They have scanners! They instantly know when someone doesn’t have the Mark! How on earth did we get through?! That’s impossible!” Andrew exclaimed.
“Prayer is a mighty weapon.” Drew said simply.
“Wow. Just….wow.” Andrew said.
Many hours later they had been compelled to go off-road because there was no direct route to Zion and they came to a raging river, that was wide and bridgeless, all the bridges having gone out long ago. Drew prayed that the car could hover right over the river, and it did.
Drew and Catherine took pictures of them going over the river with their digital cameras. “This is quite lovely,” Catherine said.
“It’s even lovelier with you by my side,” said Drew, and he took her hand. She blushed.
“I got three Yahtzees in a row!” Nick exclaimed. He was playing a hand-held Yahtzee game he had acquired a few years ago, oblivious to what was going on around him. “I just beat my old high score, and the game isn’t over yet!”
“That’s terrific, son. I’m proud of you,” Drew said encouragingly. Sylvia was asleep.
Once over the river, they went through some large woods, then bramble bushes, then right through a large field. This all took about two hours. The child was still asleep, but the older brother was now raptly paying attention to his surroundings, having put the game up a long time ago, saying things like “cool” and “neato”. Once they had passed a bear who had been minding his own business, and had not even so much as glanced their way. Andrew had been a bit unnerved by that. Soon they crossed a highway, or a road, then crossed another. The third road they came to, they turned left onto, for Drew knew that it was going in the direction he needed to go. Drew followed this highway for four hours and eventually got onto another abandoned freeway. The freeway seemed very eerie to Andrew. They had to drive around derelict husks and shells of cars some with skeletons still in their clothes. Andrew hoped night wouldn’t fall as they were on this road, but alas, it did. Andrew squirmed in his seat as he saw pock marks from a war-ravaged freeway and dead skeletons everywhere in cars and out of them. But no one else in the car was bothered. Nick was taking a film with his camcorder. Sylvia was awake now, coloring a picture. Andrew was amazed at how she stayed within the lines. They hovered over a bombed out overpass, and later hovered over a crumbled overpass that blocked their passage, once over the freeway, now on top of it. Nick was still filming. Later they got off at a derelict exit and parked their car in a modern ghost-town, and all slept until morning.
Morning came, and with it a dust storm, a big one, with nuclear rain that made Andrew very glad they hadn’t left their car. They waited it out, Sylvia coloring again and Nick taking panoramic shots of the dust and rain with his camcorder. After the dust settled and the rain stopped, they ate a hearty breakfast Drew had packed, each fresh hot part of it wrapped up in miraculous pouches that kept them that hot and that fresh. Everyone ate well, then they got back onto the freeway. Somehow, 5 hours later the derelict freeway connected to a busy and congested freeway that was one-way., with the other freeway going in the other direction five miles distant from it. Fortunately, the one Drew wanted was the one they were on. A band of motorcyclists wended their ways through all the congestion. Some cars they harassed with machine guns and knives, stealing many possessions which they kept in their motorcycle’s saddlebags. Drew and Catherine, Andrew and the kids all prayed for protection. The marauding motorcycle gangs left them alone. Traffic was slow, often jamming for hours. No problem for Sylvia and Nick, who kept busy, either with coloring, snapping pictures, taking video, playing the ‘alphabet game’ with the others in the car, or sharing the Yahtzee game, or playing BINGO, or countless other things they found to do. As for Andrew, boredom set in. He rested his head on his left hand, absentmindedly staring out the window at nothing in particular. Drew and Catherine were talking to each other in their minds. Night fell, and people started getting out of their cars making trouble. Again the group prayed for protection. The rabble rousers and troublemakers left them alone. Traffic was at a dead stand-still, so they locked their doors, prayed for protection, and slept. They had eaten again earlier in the day, a good supper, which Catherine had packed.
When morning came, horns were honking all over the place. Traffic had started to move again, so Drew started the car, and moved with it. Six hours later (they all skipped breakfast) they got off at an exit and ate a hearty meal at a high-end sit down restaurant, using one of their special cards to pay for the meal. Then they all stayed at a hotel, again using one of those cards. They were all so exhausted, they all slept ‘til the next morning. There was a free continental breakfast for hotel guests, so they ate that, and then found that someone had stolen their car. “What do we do now?” Asked Andrew.
“We pray…,” said Catherine.
“…And wait,” finished Drew.
So they all prayed long and mightily for a way to get to their next destination from here, only, silently, and in their hearts, for if spies caught them praying, they could all lose their heads. So they prayed as they meandered their way through the crowds.
Three hours later they were sitting on a park bench when a big SUV pulled up driven by a man who Drew and Catherine instantly saw did not have the Mark. “Hey, you guys, get in!” He said. They all did.
The man introduced himself as Big Al, and said he was in prayer and an angel appeared to him and told him to go pick up a family and a young man and take them all to Zion, “and told me and showed me right where you would all be. Sure enough, I go there to that place and there you all are.”
On the nine-hour circuitous route to Zion, some off-road, they found out Big Al was not a Restorationist, but after they explained the gospel to him in its fullness, he desired baptism, so they parked at a lake. A holy man on this errand came to baptize him, and he and Drew confirmed him a member of Jesus Christ.
Then they were on their way to the borders of Zion. They arrived at the beautiful city at exactly midnight. They drove to and parked at the Temple in Independence. They all went in. Jesus had not come suddenly to his Temple yet, but he had appeared to some in it in non-glory appearances, including to Drew and Catherine. He did not this time, but now all six of them were freely able to worship and praise God! They lodged in the City, being treated almost like royalty. Andrew got a nice hair-cut, shave, manicure and pedicure. Big Al saw a good chiropractor and masseuse who helped his back tremendously, and then was administered to for other health problems, receiving instant healing. They all ate well, and slept gorgeously. They tarried in Zion for many, many days, then Al and Andrew parted company with the time travelers, who went immediately to Spain during the Dark Ages., during the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
* * *
Five hours later, Nick was deep in the Ocean, off the coast of Spain, invisibly using his camcorder to capture footage of underwater cities of good Nephilim fae.
Meanwhile, Sylvia was playing visibly among some Catholic village children, while Catherine and Drew were in the vicinity, talking with a young Cathar named Prescott, tearing down his gnostic beliefs and teaching him the Higher ways of God, inviting him to join a society of hidden Holy Men who are frequently visited by John the Beloved and the Three Nephites from America, and they explained what and where America was, beyond the Azores, to him, and explained many other things to him beyond his current level of understanding. “And if you don’t join that hidden society of Free Men, you will be inquisited in two week’s time, you and your wife and your children,” Drew stated emphatically.
“This is the salvation of both you and your family. You can all eventually join this society,” Catherine added.
“Is it the Freemasons?” Prescott asked nervously. I’ll never join them, sorry. They claim to have occult knowledge like that. Are you revealing Masonic secrets to me?”
“No, no, a thousand times NO,” Drew emphasized. “The Masons are satanic, with the power of satan as their ally. THIS society of Truly Free Men worketh the power of God. You needn’t worry about being inducted into any dark covenants with us. We know none. The Masons and Jesuits, rose Croix, Templars, etc., seek to overthrow all free governments. We seek the opposite.”
“Hm..can I be given three days to think about it and discuss it with my wife?”
“Sure, you do have that much time left at least,” Catherine assured.
“Ok, thanks.” Prescott said. “See you in three days.”
“We’ll meet you right here,” Drew said.
With that, they departed.
“Do you think they’ll make the right decision, he and his wife?” Catherine wondered out loud.
“Let’s hope so, and pray they do,” Drew said calmly. “Well, now we have three days to explore this place. Let’s get our kids”
Soon they picked up Sylvia from the nearby village, and took an invisible swim in the coastal Ocean to retrieve Nick. Then they all flew invisibly to Barcelona for a three-day tour. During that tour of beautiful Barcelona, by night, invisibly, and supernaturally bright candlelight, Catherine, Drew, Sylvia and Nick made a search of the biggest library in Barcelona and learned much, each learning according to their specialized bents. Then they all got on their laptops. Catherine went on FaithBook, Drew to TruthTube, and Nick and Sylvia both browsed Heavenlypedia, listening to their music with headphones. Sylvia was presently listening to Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, while at the same time Nick was listening to Love Like This by Lauren Daigle. After a few more hours, they snuffed and collected their special candles, put their laptops away, exited the huge library, and lodged at a lovely inn in the heart of Barcelona. They all got a very good night’s sleep and were refreshed in the morning.
They continued those activities all three days, touring and dining in Barcelona by day and reading in the spacious library by night, and then they hurriedly flew back to where they had come from, again invisibly, and met Prescott, who brought his wife and children with him to the meeting.
“The answer is yes,” Prescott said happily. “We will join your society.”
“Then come with us,” said Catherine. Their children, Sylvia and Nick, were with them.
They went through forest and over field and plain, and crossed footbridges over raging streams, and went by horse and pony-back the rest of the way to where three Holy men stood waiting by a pool of pure water to baptize and confirm them, except for the children who were below 8, whom they would raise, feely teaching them the tenets of the Sealed Book of Mormon and of the Holy Church until they could be baptized, into Jesus Christ, then they were quickly inducted into their Holy Society and changed physically as the rest of them were already. Then Prescott and his family, with their uninducted little ones looking on in amazement, parted ways with Drew and Catherine, Nick and Sylvia. The children of Drew and the children of Prescott had gotten along very well. One of those children Sylvia had met, a fellow girl, in the village, and they had played games together. She was nine, now inducted into the Holy Society. She told Sylvia, “thank you for your friendship” and they hugged good-bye. “I will never forget you,” Sylvia said. “Or your brothers and sisters. They are all dear to me.”
With that, they all parted ways, and all wandered the countryside, taking it all in, Nick visible, as they all were, while invisibly holding his camcorder, loving the captured views of the country. They lodged at the house of a widow, whom they befriended, and she was an elderly widow, who quietly kept her faith at home, neither a Cathar, a Bogomil or a Latin Rite Catholic. Knowing she would die in peace and eventually progress to the third level of Celestial Glory someday, they treated her with kindness and the utmost respect. And for all the additional days they spent in Spain they returned to lodge at her house. She would cook the most sumptuous meals and didn’t charge a penny for food or lodging. She was very given to hospitality. But soon, they parted ways with the kindhearted woman and traveled by horse and pony through France, lodging at castles, inns and people’s houses, sometimes paying a fair sum, sometimes for free, to Switzerland. They climbed a mountain to its summit and had a picnic there, the four of them. Drew and Catherine held hands. Then, suddenly, Catherine’s water broke and she painlessly gave birth to her second daughter, naming her Alice. Catherine let, Sylvia, then Nick, hold Alice for a while, then placed her in the arms of her proud father. They spent four years living as peasants in a small Swiss village and raising Alice to the age where she could comprehend time travel and being able to fly and become invisible. Drew worked as a miller, making fine flour and selling it to the villagers, and the family lived off the profits. Holy Men of the Order of Melchizedek would come to collect his tithes and offerings, and he would give 10 additional percent to the local peasant church. None in his family took their Communion, but they became respected visitors of the little congregation of villagers worshiping their God in the best way they knew how, worshipping God and praising Him without any interference from the Catholics. One year later, God put a little time machine, wired to only go where her parents were going, either her mother or her father, inside Drew’s backpack, and Drew gave it to Alice for her fifth birthday. Two holy men presented Alice with a little satchel to carry it in. Though Alice was still not baptized or confirmed, having not yet reached age eight, she had been born with some of her parent’s abilities, as had Nick and young Sylvia. She had practiced flying invisibly and incorporeally all over Switzerland with her mother for most of the last year. Now that she was five, and could read at a college level, play five instruments and do calc and trig, and had read the Bible, Book of Mormon, sealed Book of Mormon, and all eight volumes of RLDS Church History and much of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno and a lot of the apocrypha and Psuedepigrapha and Gospel of Thomas, understanding it all, she was ready to be trained on using her time machine. But they had to start small, jumping ahead and behind in time for minutes, then hours, then a few days, then a few weeks ,until she got the hang of it. Finally, Drew gave his mill away to a worthy apprentice (who knew his secrets but did not share his special abilities) and the five of them went to the 1990’s, specifically AD 1997, to a comfortable Midwest town in the United States of America. Drew converted all the money he had earned selling flour to US Dollars by putting the mill money in his backpack and asking God to convert it to the proper currency. All told, it was a substantial sum. They bought a nice house and still had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars left over, which he kept in his backpack, giving his wife lots and lots of spending money weekly, and doling out 20.00 every two weeks to his 17 year old son and 13 year old daughter, who both lived purity culture. They joined the local RLDS Restoration Branch in town, putting their names on the rolls, presenting, except for Alice, valid certificates of baptism and Confirmation and letters of recommendation from elders who gave their credentials in the letters. It was unquestioned. Adjusting to modern life was rather easy. All the hardships of life in the Dark Ages were virtually gone. Drew got a job as a carpenter, and Catherine became a skilled Realtor. Nick got a job at the local Taco Bell. He grew quite fond of Chalupas. He and the family also ate quite frequently at McDonald’s and Wendy’s, and occasionally a Chiese Buffet in town. Alice, Nick and Sylvia continued to experiment and grow in their abilities. Nick became partial to regularly visiting to Old West and Civil War periods. Sylvia, because she wasn’t yet 15, needed her parent’s permission to visit Nauvoo in its heyday and witness the construction and Dedication of the Kirtland Temple in Ohio. These things, when she was granted permission to view them over and over, strengthened her faith. Once, Nick got shot badly at the battle of Antietam Creek, and came home bloody, wounded in the right leg. Lovingly admonishing him to, except when needed otherwise, always stay invisible and incorporeal in the heat of battle, Drew lovingly extracted the bullet, then administered to him, and his leg instantly healed and the wound closed, as if new. Then he told Nick to take a bath and wash the blood off. Drew had once made the same mistake at Flanders Field, and again at Guadalcanal, and Jesus Christ himself had healed him completely at those times, after Drew had both times tended to his wounds as best he could. Although immortal, he found he still had to be careful. He knew now that until Alice was of age, he and Catherine needed to protect her and watch over her, and command the angels to do the same, and pray also for God’s protection for that precious child. Practicing natural family planning, Drew and Catherine were not going to have another child until Alice was at least 10.
One time, the family was at the kitchen table watching TruthTube videos on Drew’s laptop, when Drew got a phone-call from the son of a friend who was dying of cancer. Telling his family to stay in the house, Drew became invisible, flew through the roof, and took to the skies, flying to the hospital and landing behind a dumpster and becoming visible, as he had done so many times, in so many cities and towns, or behind a hay-bale, or tool shack, phone-booth, or anything that would hide his ability to become invisible from the general public. Then he rushed into the hospital, asking the receptionist at the front desk where Fred Mallorey was staying, and in what room. She said he was in ICU and very few were allowed in there, only family and ministers. Drew told her he was an ordained minister, and showed his Elder’s card. She pressed her intercom and told them in that ICU unit the situation and to let him in. She asked him his name. “Drew Yankovic”. He said.
“Yes, his name is Drew…..Ok, I’ll send him up.”
Soon, he had ascended the elevator shaft incorporeally to his floor and walked out of the elevator when it opened, to his unit, then to his room. He knew the elevator car would be empty. He got there just in time. Fred was fading fast. He administered to him, asking anyone who didn’t believe he could be 100% cured of his stage 4 cancer to please leave the room. One nurse left in a huff, but the doctors, tecnicians, and the rest of the nurses, and his son Mike stayed. He could tell from their countenances they believed, though one was an atheist. He relished this opportunity to show this young man the reality of God. After the administration, Fred was completely awake, lucid and in charge of his faculties. Drew knew his cancer was gone, his insides, wherever the cancer had affected, were healed up and restored, and that the cancer would never return. He commanded the nurses to bring Fred some real food from the cafeteria and that Drew would pay double for the food. One hurried to obey, while the doctors, nurses and technicians checked him out and ran multiple tests for hours, finally releasing him after taking out all his IV’s, prescribing no medications, having him get dressed in street clothes, and giving him his walking papers, recommending that he come back in three weeks for more tests, which he agreed to do.
The atheistic doctor talked to Drew at length and Drew led him to faith in the Restoration. He was baptized and confirmed three weeks later, with one of the male technicians and two of the nurses.
* * *
When Nick was 19, Sylvia was 15 and Alice was 7, Sylvia was ready to take independent trips in time and place of her own election. Alice had taken to studying and studying the RLDS and LDS Doctrine and Covenants save for Doctrine and Covenants 132, which she had read once but it gave her the same kind of headache that RLDS DC 156 had, then going back in time with her parent’s permission to see the events of the DC and Church History actually happening, even the Revelations themselves being given. This strengthened Alice’s faith tremendously. She wasn’t allowed to go see the Book of Mormon history yet, or Bible, which Drew had done a little of, and had also beheld some Roman and Greek History. Catherine regularly visited ancient Carthage, Minoa and Atlantis, and had even witnessed Theseus slaying the Minotaur. Catherine and Drew had recently watched Joan of Arc fighting the English and then watched William Wallace and later The Bruce win Independence, then had travelled through nearly every phase of the American Revolution and went even further into the future and watched Martin Luther King, Jr. give his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech, then went back and seen Martin Luther nail his 95 Theses to the Church Door in Wittenberg, then watched together as he said “Here I Stand, I can do none else, God help me”.
When Alice turned 8 (Nick and Sylvia were now 20 and 16), she was a little confused as to why she couldn’t be baptized at the restoration branch she attended, but must be baptized by her father. Her father explained that there was something more Alice needed to know, that the others at that Branch did not know, that the Sealed book of Mormon she had read since she could first read made their situation rather special and different from other Restorationists. Nick and Sylvia knew already. With that Alice acquiesced and Drew baptized, and a holy man on this errand and Drew confirmed. Once confirmed, and dry. After Baptism Alice had anew attitude when it came to the Scriptures. She devoured them. They made her hungry.
By now, Nick was courting a beautiful woman named Carmen. She had dark, straight long hair and was tall and pure and chaste, and he had met her at a local Church Reunion. She only lived 15 minutes away from them by walking, and he had a driver’s license, and a yellow car. A year later he proposed to her. He was 21, Sylvia was 17 and Alice 9.
During their engagement he kept promising Carmen that when they were married he would take her off to faraway places and they would help people in need, and there would be danger and excitement, and that he had abilities he couldn’t reveal to her until they were married. This all intrigued Carmen, for she knew he was honest, and had integrity, so he wouldn’t lie to her or promise something he couldn’t deliver. He promised to make her life more interesting than she could possibly imagine. Drew married them, then two holy men appeared to Carmen and Nick 5 days after their honeymoon began, took them to the future to a Zion Temple and their marriage was sealed there so that they could have progeny in heaven, then they returned to 1997 AD, and for all five of these days Nick had been showing her his laptop, camcorder footage, digital camera shots, time machine (though not yet letting her use it) and letting her read his diaries and other writings and spiritual experiences. He was quite a philosopher, theologian, scholar, scientist, mathematician and historian. She was frankly astonied by all this. It was better than she had hoped or imagined!
The two holy men inducted her into the same ways as Drew and the family, then she too was changed like them. They gave Carmen a backpack and suitcase with time machine, taught her how to use it, gave her a purse, and then ten days later, they were ready to go out on their REAL honeymoon to Atlantis, then to Nauvoo in its heyday, then 30 days after that, they were ready to start out on their own adventures, completely independent from Drew and Catherine. Now Catherine and Drew just had the two girls to raise.
* * *
