Guided Back to God with the Gift of Interpreting Dreams: Tyler Christen's Story - Latter-Day Lights

How does Jesus reach for us when we’re convinced we can never return back to Him?

In this week's episode of Latter-Day Lights, Tyler Christen—a returned soldier and lifelong Latter-Day Saint who spent years in and out of the Church—shares his raw, unfiltered journey through addiction, isolation, spiritual darkness, and repeated attempts to walk away from the Gospel.

From battling the temptations of pornography and party culture in the military, surviving serious car accidents, grieving a miscarriage, and experiencing terrifying demonic encounters and sleep paralysis, Tyler describes what it felt like to believe he was beyond forgiveness... Until the night he finally gave in and cried out the name of Jesus Christ.

From then on, doors began to open as Tyler found himself guided through dreams, spiritual impressions, and moments of unmistakable divine intervention that led him back to the scriptures, the temple, and a renewed sense of purpose in the Gospel. In this episode, Tyler talks about learning to recognize the Savior’s voice and his realization of being a dream interpreter—all while discovering that the gifts of the Spirit are real.

If you’ve ever questioned whether Jesus can still use you, Tyler’s story is a bold reminder that Christ’s grace can reach into the darkest places and turn a "lost cause" into a disciple on fire.

*** Please SHARE Tyler's story and help us spread hope and light to others. ***

To WATCH this episode on YouTube, visit: https://youtu.be/P9csAvu5PFw

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To READ Scott’s new book “Faith to Stay” for free, visit: https://www.faithtostay.com/

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Chapters

• 0:00 “Faith to Stay” by Scott Brandley
• 0:30 Intro
• 1:00 Welcoming Tyler Christen to the show
• 1:50 Tyler Christen in a nutshell
• 3:25 Tyler’s struggles growing up LDS
• 6:00 Tyler’s pornography addiction starts
• 7:40 Tyler starts going to Church again
• 10:00 Tyler joins the army and becomes “toxic”
• 13:50 Tyler survives an accident with no injuries
• 15:45 Tyler starts Bible study to learn more about Jesus
• 17:30 Tyler accidentally gets a woman pregnant
• 20:35 Tyler gets sent to Germany and his life spirals
• 23:55 Tyler’s experiences in the “haunted” barracks
• 26:50 Tyler’s brother visits him in Germany + gets sleep paralysis
• 31:55 David tells Tyler about his mission
• 34:30 Tyler and David interact with a couple of sisters
• 37:10 An evil entity breaks into Tyler’s home
• 40:00 Tyler feels the Lord’s presence, sees a vision, and dreams
• 49:30 Satan and Jesus speak to Tyler at the same time
• 53:00 Tyler gets in contact with Vinny Tolman and turns around his life
• 59:30 Tyler gets a calling to start dating again
• 1:02:50 Tyler matches with his fiancee
• 1:06:40 Tyler’s gift of interpreting dreams & Tyler’s testimony
• 1:12:50 Scott’s reflections on unique gifts on the Spirit
• 1:14:40 Tyler testifying Joseph Smith as a prophet
• 1:19:00 The smallest amount of belief can move mountains
• 1:23:00 Tyler on building a relationship with Jesus
• 1:33:40 Outro

Transcript

Scott Brandley: 0:00

Hey there, as a Latter Day Lights listener, I want to give you a very special gift today. My brand new book, Faith to Stay. This book is filled with inspiring stories, powerful discoveries, and even fresh insights to help strengthen your faith during the storms of life. So, if you're looking to be inspired, uplifted, and spiritually recharged, just visit faith2stay.com. Now, let's get back to the show. Hey everyone, I'm Scott Branley. Every member of the church has a story to share, one that can instill faith, invite growth, and inspire others. On today's episode, we're going to hear how a soldier who struggled with addiction fell away from the church multiple times and had his life turned upside down, but ultimately found freedom in the savior's love. Welcome to Latter Day Lights. Yeah, awesome, man. So um glad you're here with us. Um, usually we have Alisha on the show, but she is um super busy. This is her busy season with um her event business. So it's just the guys tonight, man. You and me hanging out. So um before we get things kicked off, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, Tyler?

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:50

Yeah, it's awesome. So pretty simple for the audience. My Tyler Christen, 28 years old, currently engaged with my fiance. She's from Ecuador, served about seven years in the military, months shy from seven years, but almost. And I've kind of had a big in and out experience with the church growing because I grew up as a member and kind of been an in and out experience. It's kind of like with today's day and age and technology and the way it is for the younger generation. It's kind of hard, but it it's like I don't feel like I was traditional LDS because of what I went through. But then again, I start thinking about there's a lot of people who may have similar circum circumstances as mine. And so yeah.

Scott Brandley: 2:38

Okay. So and I know we're gonna talk about some of those experiences on the episode today. So where's home? You said you're visiting Vegas. Where are you from?

Tyler Karl Christen: 2:46

Yeah, I'm from Pleasant Grove, Utah. Um, born and raised, Utah. Born, you know, born Salt Lake, grew up in Utah County, traditional Happy Valley, Utah, you know, heart of the LDS church. Everyone who grew up there kind and is pretty familiar with the church.

Scott Brandley: 3:03

So awesome. Okay, well, um, yeah, we're excited to hear about your story. I mean, I've kind of I've read your little um you you sent us a little um intro about kind of the high-level stuff, but I'd love to hear your take on it. So why don't we turn the time over to you and you can tell us kind of where your story begins.

Tyler Karl Christen: 3:24

Yeah, so that's I would say it grew it starts when like I grew up, it starts with like the beginning like everyone else. So growing up as a we had like the perfect little LDS family. For me growing up, I was like in the perfect little LDS family. Everyone went to church, my whole everyone in my family was LDS. You went to church on Sunday, you know. My mom did primary children, it was working with the primary kids, and my dad went to elders quorum. You know, growing up, it was just how it is. But as I was getting older, my family would go through financial struggles, and my family went through bankruptcy like twice. And so it was actually, you know, we'd get ham, we'd get my aunt helping us out, giving us some hand-me-downs. And so we had some struggling times when it came to money and finance, especially in the 2008 recession. And I didn't realize this was having impacting effects on my parents because when I was about 12 years old, 12 years old, I got the priesthood, right? And I was I I, you know, I didn't I was still learning about the church. I never truly read the Book of Mormon or the New Testament or the Bible. You know, I was still introductory level when it comes to like youth in the church. And I was a little awkward growing up, so kids were like kind of mean back then. But basically, my family, my one day, my family was like, hey, we're done, we're done with the church. Like, if you're gonna go to church, you have to go by yourself. And that's kind of rough, that's kind of like a monumental task asking a 12-year-old. And so I was like, Okay, I'm not going to church anymore because I ain't doing that. And so basically, I just stopped going to church. We moved to Pleasant Grove and we just kind of chilled there for a while. Occasionally, though, but you would always have the Boy Scouts with the church program reaching out to me and my brothers, trying to get us to interact with them. They were using it as an opportunity to minister us because I had some interesting experiences. The wards, like there were some boys who were pretty like, I felt like who ostracized us when we when we left the church, but then I had people who were like inviting, so it was like a battle. You had people trying to in the in the communities trying to get us to come back, and people I felt like were against us. And so growing up in Utah, you kind of have this like there's a Utah culture, and it's not the church that's the problem, it's the culture that's the problem. And that's what I felt growing up. And I feel there's a lot of people in my age group who feel that way. And so, you know, growing up, it was tough. And I had a lot of friends when I'm about growing up, I was just going through a lot of tough times in this, and I've I I just felt like something was missing in my life, but I didn't know what it was, and I knew like maybe I felt like it was the church that needed to be because everything went wrong in my family when we left the church, because then my parents, they'd been starting to, you know, make some questionable life. There was alcohol in the home, there was other things, and it it led me to get addicted to pornography. And when I started getting addicted to pornography, I started seeing some questionable things in my home. And I I felt like my house was haunted, you know. I felt I would see spirits, and there would be things that would go on, and they would they would personally haunt me. And I felt like it was like I don't know what it was like the evil had enter into our house, if that makes sense.

Scott Brandley: 6:44

Yeah, yeah. And I we've had other guests on that have kind of had similar experiences when when you know bad things start happening, um, you know, like bad spirits and things come in and and it affects affects you as a person.

Tyler Karl Christen: 7:01

Exactly. And I just felt this like going into my teenhood because I was like, you know, trying to fit in, felt like an outcast, acted out, you know, typical teenager. And I ended up getting to a point where I was at odds with my mom and my dad because they were I knew they were both wrong in the way they were living at that time. And so it kind of turned me against them, and I would get into these like intense arguments with my parents, and then my mom and dad were fighting at the same time because you know they were on the they were going through a nasty divorce, and so it was like a almost like me against them, them against each other. It was like our house was divided, and so as I was like standing out, I started going to church by myself when I was 16, and I because my friend, I was doing it for a girl at the time, you know, and but I started going to church with my friend Tyres, and we started going to church, and you know, my dad saw that, and I don't think he says it too much, but after that, my brothers and me one day went to the park with my dad, and he was started doing this life leadership program, which really changed him a lot. But it was that day we were like, we want to go back to church because our family's breaking, right? My sister already moved out of the house, she didn't care. And my mom had at this point was moving out of the house, right? This is when they kind of officially separated, but you know, and so when this kind of happened, my dad started taking us back to church. He's like, Started going with us, we started doing at this point. That was for me, that was what I wanted just stability in the house because I was done with what was going on. And when this happened, I was having these like personal haunting attacks where I would see spirits and they would try to attack me at night around the haunting hour. And so, like, I never told anyone my family because I felt like you know, I told my mom, but she didn't really understand it at the time. And my brothers, David, and my other brothers, they they they knew that was happening because I they lived next to the room next to me. But besides the point, after that, my parent my mom left the house, everything kind of chilled out, right? It was like I had peace again. I was like 17, 18, 19. I was chilling. And during this time, I when I was 18, uh 19, I got a job in construction and I started hanging out with all my friends, and I kind of started falling away a little bit. I started drinking beers secretly on the job site, doing what 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds do, you know, and just you know, doing what fooling around, you know. And then at around this time, because I I didn't have like I really didn't understand the gospel. That's the truth. Because in the when I grew up in the church, I didn't feel like I was truly taught who Jesus was. Like they would emphasize he's the savior, and I didn't really understand who Jesus was. Like I didn't feel growing up in the church, I was truly taught. And also I had a big gap like when most of the kids were learning in seminary and they were also going to church on I wasn't. That was a huge gap for me. And my brothers, I'm so glad when what happened in my house happened because I opened the door for my brothers to go to church and get that when I didn't. And so when I at this point in my life, all my friends are joining the military, and I'm like, why not me? Right. So I joined the army, and when I got to the army, like at this point, my pornography addiction is bad. And I joined the army, and like they, you know, I was they took away my phone, I couldn't look at porn, and I was just kind of focused on the army stuff. And there was a mission going on in the in the military at the for it was at Fort Benning, or we got Fort Jackson. I was at Fort Jackson, and it was 2017 in October. And like I joined, so I went there and I started going to this mission, right? They were like getting the soldiers, we were worshiping, and the the the local bishop there, he was like, Oh, you're a deacon still? Let's get you to a priest. That was that's the first time I kind of felt worthy because I saw this undying shame from my pornography addiction. And so I was like, Okay, I guess I could do it. I just felt weird, and so I you know, I got they ordained me to a priest, and I was like, okay, I'm doing good. And I started becoming a little passionate at the moment. And when training ended, like when I had to go to the next phase of training, I went to my advanced technical training, right? Because I was training to be a mechanic, and I was told I couldn't go to church anymore, and I needed to have a battle buddy wherever I went, or you know, battle partner, and so for me, it was just like, oh, so and nobody was LDS, like in my class there. Nobody wanted to go with me to the LDS church, and so I kind of started just trying to fit in and I started becoming a jerk. I'm gonna be honest. I started becoming a jerk, like the military attitude, it's like eat or be eaten, you know, kind of mentality, like who's the top dog? You it was like be strict and follow orders, like you they kind of brainwash you in a way, you they want you to think in a certain way, and I was like I was funneling down that way, and so I just kind of started going through all my training, went to airborne school, you know, I was doing all the things that I was there to do, and finally when I got to my unit, right? People didn't even want to associate with me. They're like, oh, this is the awkward Mormon guy, and so for me, I was just like, Oh, well, I want to fit in. And right there would have been the perfect time for the church to reach back out to me, but I wasn't connected to anyone in the church at that moment because I was in Florida down by the beaches, and so I was just like, and I'm telling right now, Florida is a crazy place sometimes, like there's certain parts, you know, like you gotta be like, and so the other soldiers would start like, oh, let's go drink and party, and then I started doing that with them, and then one thing led to another, and I eventually break the law of chastity, right? And I started just being like every other guy, you know, stereotypical military guy in the army, and I just was doing what everyone else was doing, and I'm really ashamed for those things, don't get me wrong. And it just kind of went like that for the first two years I was in, and I was just partying, I was drinking, I was on Tinder, hooking up with girls. That's like what you see a lot of people in my generation, is like it's all online social media, dating, hookup, partying. And there's I hate to say there's a lot of young people in like my group of general who fall stray in the church like that. And I'm like, I'm one of them. And I feel like I felt like it made me feel more unworthy that I couldn't come back. I was like, my priesthood, it doesn't matter at this point, right? I've already lost it. That was my thinking, right? Right.

Scott Brandley: 13:37

So as this is going on, like you've gone too far, you can't be forgiven, like it's too hard, right?

Tyler Karl Christen: 13:44

Exactly. It's exactly what you're saying. And so on the it was the winter of 2019, going into 2020, that Christmas holiday, I went to go on a Tinder date. It was like a day before I flew back home for Christmas. The the they had just say, be safe, don't do stupid stuff. The commander said all that stuff, and people were like going off for the weekend. So I went to go meet with a date, and it was raining that night. And as I was driving my truck, my tires were a little bit bald, and I just started to hydro plane. And I just next thing, I'm like, my truck kind of swerves, and then boom, I'm upside down. Like just like that. I'm upside down, and I'm just like cussing up a storm. I'm like beep, beep, beep, beep, you know, like I was like, it was a it was bad. And as I was doing this, it's like time almost slowed down to a stop. It was like almost like as if I was like sitting in my truck and like nothing was moving. I'm like, look, it's like almost as if I was like moving a million miles per hour and everything else was moving like one mile per hour. It was like it was a weird experience. And I'm sitting there and I look, I had this feeling like grab your leg. And I look out to the left, and my leg is hanging out the car, my truck door is like swung open, and my leg is just chilling out there, and I just grab your leg, grab your leg, grab your leg, and I grab my leg and I pull it in. And then right when I did that, the door slammed shut like the second I grabbed my leg. It was a split second from being chopped off because at that exact moment, the truck was rolling on the ground, and I had angels looking after me at that moment. I know I did. Because after because I walked away from I that truck rolled three times on a field, and this was like in a place in Florida where a lot of people got into accidents, and I rolled three times into a field, and I when the truck stopped rolling, I got out and I had no injuries. Like I went, they took me into the hospital, they checked me out, they said I was good to fly home. But yeah, I I would literally like the pride I was having, the Lord took my truck. He was just like, mm-mm, you know, time to wake up. And so after that, I went home, I was like a mess, came back to Florida, got a new truck, and I was just like, what happened to me, you know? And then a Bible study group came to my door, and they were like the Protestant Christians, right? It was like this guy named Vaughn, he was a super cool guy. Love him. And he's like, You wanna come out for some pizza and some Jesus? And at this point in my life, I felt like I didn't know who Jesus was. Like I grew up in the church, and it was like, Jesus Christ is the savior. He I remember that he turned, he fed 5,000 people, he died on the cross. You know, the basic stories I could remember, right? He walked on water. That's like all I knew. It's like, okay, he's this guy who did miracles. But he but at the same time, I knew God was real because of my haunting experiences. And I was saying Jesus is the son of God because I didn't know what else who I didn't know what else to because I didn't that's what I grew up with. I was like, okay, I'm gonna say Jesus is the son of God because that's the only thing I can trust right now. But at the same time, I'm like, I don't know much about him. So I was like, why not? So I started going out to the Bible study. I'm still drinking, I'm still parting, I'm still messing with people, like everyone else is, you know, being sinful of the world. But I'm out there starting to learn, read, read about the gospel of Matthew and have a prayer journal. And this Vaughn and these some of these other guys in the Bible, Will, super good guys, like, you need to watch the chosen. And I'm like, this is right when the first season of the chosen was being released, and it's like, and I'm like just trying to like feeling it, but at the same time, I'm like, I was kind of like somewhat passionate because I almost died in a car accident, so I'm like, Yeah, that this Jesus is good, man. I'm a little shooking. And at this time, right, I was just living it, and about the next Christmas season, I started dating this little uh Hispanic woman, and she was uh she was Mexican, and we started hitting it off, and we got too frisky, and I ended up having we I ended up having you know intimacy with her, and we it it I ended up getting her pregnant, and then she and me started arguing about abortion, and I just couldn't like she wanted me to pay for it, and I was like, no, I don't believe this. This is not what God would want, right? And me and her started fighting, I was like, and it's right, and this all came up after I broke up with her, so I was like, hey, let's get back together, let's make it work. I just I can't do this, you know? And I want to be a dad, you know. And then one night she went out while I was at home in the barracks, right? And I have this vision. Like, this is like my first vision I've ever had. And I see this girl with like my eyes and red curly hair, like, and she's like three years old holding my hand, and I'm walking with her, and I'm like confused. I'm like, what's going on? And next thing you know, I'm not holding her hand, she's holding someone else's hand walking into the light. Later on, I realized that was Jesus, but at that time I didn't understand what was happening. And then right after the vision ended, I was confused. It was a Friday night, and I get a phone call. I answer the phone, and it was the girl I was having relations with, and she gave me a call, and she's like, Hey, I just had a miscarriage. Broke my heart at that moment. I felt I I felt so bad at that moment, and I just the Bible study group was there trying to you know help me through it, but in the end, I just started punishing myself after that I was like, This is my fault. I'm so sinful, right? I just I I literally lost a human life because of my stupid actions, and because she was in a situation because of our arguing and our fighting and the way stuff it was what led her to into the situation that caused the miscarriage, so that's why I blame myself for that. And so it was just it it really was sticking in my mind about that. And during this time, I started having some hauntings happen. Like I saw a ghost of the 1800s woman appear in my barracks room, and then we had a whiteboard that flew across the room. Me and my roommate were both freaked out because we were both playing video games and we're the only ones in there. Like weird stuff, right? Weird stuff was happening. So I was like, okay, I need to get away from the States. So I it was right, and all this was happening right when it was whether my reenlistment was to come up because it's like a big deal for soldiers. Like, do you continue working in the army or do you get out? Right? Or where's my next duty station? And what was gonna happen with this kid was gonna determine if I stayed or not, you know? And that after that, I was like, okay, I'm gonna continue serving. And I tried getting orders to Japan, but they also asked me for like a backup place, and I was like, okay, Germany. And then I got orders to Germany, right? So I got sent over to like uh a duty station out in Germany, and when I got there, it was right before the Ukraine war started, and so like every NATO-related military base in Europe at that moment was like freaking out, ready to go to war in Ukraine, basically. And I'm like, bro, I just got here and now I'm packing my bags to go to Ukraine, bro. I'm like, this is freaking me out. And I just got into like a relationship with a German girl, you know? And she, me and her both believed in spirits, but she was like, we both would have arguments when it came to religion because she would like attack the church, even though I was angry at the church, I had past feelings about the church, right? I was just like, I would defend the church. No, no, don't talk about my people about that. That's through my people, only and I could talk bad about the church. It didn't make sense, but I would get upset. I was just like, you can't talk about them like that, you know. And then we wouldn't talk about religion because we both felt like we would just come at odds, like because she was like, I think, Catholic or Protestant, I don't know, but then she wasn't being religious either, so it was just confusing, right? So we didn't talk about it, and so I just started falling, and this is about like after I've been in the military for about like three, I've been in the military for over three three years. I'm going to my fourth, I'm in Germany, new location, fresh start. And I start just kind of partying and drinking again, hanging out with the Germans, traveling, you know, just doing what I'm doing. And you know, my life kind of went back to what it was before the accident, the first accident. And you know, it's just like and I started having dreams about my new truck crashing, right? Crashing my new truck. And I was like, uh-uh, uh-uh-nuh. And I had dreams before I went to Germany about like the end of the world, and like if I you just I knew God still spoke to me, but I just didn't really think about it. It's like you it's like you choose to ignore, and because you just don't think about it. And so when I was by uh the first year I was in Germany, after the first year, my ex-girl, my German girlfriend, she breaks up with me, and I fall into this dark spiral because it affected me so badly. Because for me, it was like, oh, I'm alone, I don't talk to my family anymore. Because when I joined the military, I just grew distant from my family, and we did I stopped talking to them really. And so, and especially when Germany, I was like, I want it's like it's too expensive to fly back and forth to visit the family, so I just didn't do it, and so I just kind of felt like okay, yeah. I just fell into a dark spiral. My pornography addiction got really bad, where it was just like it was a f like to the point where I had to look at it three times a day, you know. Like it's already bad enough when you're doing it once a day, and then you have to do it three times a day. It was bad. I was drinking heavily, it was I was in a and I was stressed out because we were running nonstop missions because of what's going on in NATO and Ukraine, you know. Can't go into details, but it's like uh it was very stressful. And so for me, I'm being a support mechanic, always fixing stuff, always it's it's a it's a stressful work environment, but I also got the opportunity to go see the sites every now and then, but it was slowly eating at me. And then basically, around I would say, uh I would say it was like the summer of 2023, I decided to go on a trip to Rome with my friend. And we go to Rome, we visit the Vatican City and all that, and I'm checking all these sites of Jesus, right? I'm like, oh, this is cool, this is cool, you know. And I felt like something was happening that the Lord was doing something because soon after my brother David, who served a mission, right? I hadn't seen him in four years, he reaches, and this is right when I moved out of the barracks and got because this is what this is the crazy part. So when I was living in the barracks, there were multiple people who started claiming they were like seeing demons, they were having mental breakdowns. And so when I was walking these barracks, I knew the barracks were haunted because when I would walk in these barracks, I would see like a shadow person like stalking me, and I'd be like, Okay, that's obviously a spirit, there's a haunting this this building's haunted, and I felt it. And there were people who say they heard German ghosts speaking and stuff like that, because we're in Germany, right? And so I knew the barracks was haunted, I lived it. And one day I was walking down the barracks hallway, I look into the mirror reflection, and I see what looked like devil horns on my head, and I choose to ignore it. I'm like, no, not gonna pretend I didn't see that. But I didn't see that. Keep walking, yeah. I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that. And my ex-girlfriend was always uncomfortable when she was in the barracks, she felt like it was haunted too. And so soon after, like right after that Vatican trip, the barracks manager's like, hey, you can move off base. So I was like, Cool, moved off base. I was like, I'm out of that haunted barracks, I'm gonna be chilling. Started throwing parties at my own new place. I was, you know, having blasts. And then out of the blue, like all my friends stopped messing with me. It was like everyone got busy, people were upset with me, or people didn't want to hang out with me. And I was just like, okay. It's like everyone in my life, I was like, I just got isolated out of the blue. And then at that moment, David's my brother, he started reaching out to me. He served a mission in like Nevada, I think it was Rio Nevada or something like that, and he did a Spanish-speaking mission. But anyway, he had recently came back from his mission and he got a new intersect job, and he was like getting paid really good. And we were talking, I was like, David, you should come out. He's like, I haven't seen you in forever, Tyler. We connected on DD, we kind of nerds, we're talking, and he's like, I want to see you. And I was like, and this is the first time I felt like my family cared about me, so to speak, because I just felt distant from them. And I was like, someone cares enough to want to come see me? Bet I was like, come come stay at my place. I got a guest room now, I have my own place. You can actually stay here. Come out for the Vosen, which is like a big German festival, like the state fair for Germany, and it's Germans, right? Okay, like you know, like a beer fest almost, but with rides everywhere. And so I'm like, come out for the Vosen, come see me, you know. I'm like, it'll be fun. So David's like, yeah, without a hesitation, bought a ticket. And his boss gave him, it was a new job, and the boss's like, Yeah, you could take a vacation. It was like, how many new jobs let you take a vacation right after you start working there?

Scott Brandley: 26:47

Right, yeah, yes, that doesn't happen.

Tyler Karl Christen: 26:52

So he comes out to Germany, right? And when he fly, his flight got redirected to Frankfurt, and the only temple out there for our area was in Frankfurt, and that was like three hours away or two and a half. I was in Stuttgart. And so I was like, okay, I gotta drive all the way there to get him. So I go out all the way to Frankfurt to pick him up. And on the way back, he's like, hey, I want to go to church while I'm here. And I was like, okay, look, out of respect to you, David, I ain't I ain't I'm not going to the LDS church anymore, right? I don't, I don't want to, I don't believe it. I believe there's I know I believe there's a God and Jesus, but you know, I'm I'm not I'm not about it. You know, like I'll take you this one time, but I'm not coming back to the faith, right? And he was like, Yeah, I'm okay with that. You know, getting that that's what David wanted. And I was like, okay. And so we get to my place and we start talking, and it's almost like one or two, it's like two in the morning at this rate, right? And I was like, okay, we decide we don't want to go to bed. I send him to my guest room, and I walk into my room. And see, I've when I walked into my room, I turned up, I have like a it was a big room, right? Where I had a glass balcony, I had a balcony, and there's like big glass doors and windows next to it. Then I have my king-size bed, and then it's kind of when you lay down, you can just see all these windows, right? I usually have all the the blinds closed so the street lights don't get in there because it's I'm in a city, right? And so I walk in there, I turn off the lights, I sit down on my bed, and before I laid down, I looked towards the windows, and I see what was the scariest thing in my life, I feel, at that time. Because I've I've had a lot of, I've seen, I've like, I felt like I've seen spirits before, right? But this is like the scariest thing I've ever seen. And this was like, it was like a six foot, seven-tall person standing in my room. He was like shadowy black. He was like, he was like a starved-looking person. Like it was like almost like this guy was starved. Third world, like he was just like aneurystic, starving, you know? And he was wearing a loincloth, and half his head was like dreadlocks and balding. It was almost like if you were to take a really messy dreadlock and like just rip out a bunch of the guy's hair, basically. And it was like no face, it was like a shadowy, soulless face. There was no face, and it was just sitting there staring at me. And me, like I've had experiences in my past, and I just ignore them. Like, if I ignore it, it goes away. Right? And for me at that moment, I was just like, not tonight. I'm like, nope, and just laid right down and went to sleep. I was like, I ain't dealing with that tonight. Probably that's not how you deal with things. No, because I an hour later, I woke back, I woke up, and I was flat on my back. And I'm I wake up and I'm like, he's still there, it's still there. And then I really and it's like staring at me, and this, but I'm paralyzed. I've never been paralyzed, but it's like sleep paralysis, they call it. But I was like, I'm awake, and I'm paralyzed, and I can't do anything. And I'm like terrified at this moment. I'm like, okay, this is weird. I've never had this happen to me before. And David's in the other room, and I couldn't even call out to him. My mouth couldn't move, my eyes were locked in place. I couldn't, I I I knew I was awake, but I was completely helpless. And so in my heart, I was like, okay, I need help. I need help. David can't hear me. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And at that moment, I was like, the only thing that could come to my mind, the only thing that came to my mind was Jesus Christ. I was like, why not? And I was like, and I just screamed and like I was like screaming in my own mind. I was like, Jesus Christ, please save me. And nothing happened. And I felt this like entity, like I it was like scary or angry or something. I was like, okay, this is Satan. I'm about to be possessed by a demon, right? And so I'm just like, I got terrified, and I was like, I screamed it again in my mind, Jesus Christ, please save me. Nothing happened. At this point, I'm freaking out. I'm like, this is the end. This is the end. I'm about to be possessed. And so in my mind, I'm like, for a third and final time, I screamed, Jesus Christ, please save me. And at that exact moment, I regained control of my entire body. I was like, I jumped out of bed, I slammed the light switch, and it was gone. And I was so spooked. And so I just started listening to like I put on primary songs I had listened to when I was a child. I just started listening to that, like, I'm a child of God. That's what I put on, I'm a child of God. And I just started listening to I'm a child of God, and I didn't really sleep that night. I didn't want to wake David up. But the next morning when David woke up, I say, Hey, David, you have that what Melchizedek, what Melchizedek priesthood, whatever you call it, you're a priest. You serve a missionary. I was like, Melchizedek priesthood? Yeah, that that priesthood. And he's like, Yeah, I have it. What about it? It's like, well, well, you see, last night I saw a demon. And David, I told him the whole thing, and he was so spooked. He was like, you know? And so he goes into my room and he does a blessing, and he's like, he basically it was about he put a blessing to cast out all evil, right? Based off of my faith and his faith, both of our faith. It was very specific what the spirit said, because this plays on later in the story. And so after it was done, David saw this as an opportunity, and he was like, okay, I'm gonna tell him about my mission. You know, he's like, he gets ready to tell me all about it. So we sit down, he starts telling about his mission. He's like, bro, he's like, you should, you know, I knew a guy who almost died in COVID who could see spirits like you. Like, there's certain people in the church who can see spirits as a gift, Tyler. The Lord's calling out to you. And I'm like, yeah, I know Jesus really just saved me. So um I believe in loving one another and doing good, but I don't believe the LDS church is the way, you know. I was like, I was like, I'm not gonna give up drinking, I'm not gonna give up coffee, I'm not gonna, you know, be I had a view that the the the church was oppressive and it was super rule strict. You know, that's how I was thinking about the church. Like, why would I I'm not gonna do that? Like, Jesus broke drank wine, dude. Why are you trying to tell me this? Right? And so then David, this is what really got sparked my curiosity about the Book of Mormon. We were sitting there, David's like, have you ever heard of the grave of Nahum? You've probably heard of it. And he started telling me about the Nephi Trail and how there's an actual grave, like how the Nephi Trail went across the Arabian coast, and it was supposed to be an eight-year trail, and the Arabian Coast is the perfect walking path where desert travelers would go, and there's a perfect little two different areas that are perfect for shipbuilding up there, described like in the Book of Mormon. And halfway from Jerusalem there, there's this place called Nahom. They found an archaeological site. And what's crazy, I later looked at the ocean current maps, and the ocean currents go over the Cape of Africa, which matches the stormy region in the Book of Mormon, where Nephi and his brothers probably would have been like super stormy, and then those ocean curts pushes up to Brazil. It matches perfectly what would be described in the Book of Mormon. And so, me, I'm like seeing this, I'm like, bro, this is interesting. And I was like, and I at that moment was like, maybe I don't know everything about the Book of Mormon. Because I was going off of memory when I was in church, like, oh, there's Nephi, there's the Laman Knights, the Sthous and Tripling Warriors. These are the things I could remember, right? And I'm like, Right, yeah, and I'm like Joseph Smith, and then so I was like, I don't know the Book of Mormon, apparently. It's like maybe I do need to read it. Because I thought I could just summarize it. I was like, you know, because that's what I did. Like a lot of people who go in act, like, oh, I could summarize the Book of Mormon. People who you know I mean, that's how I was. And so at that moment, I was like, I don't know it. Maybe I should read it. And but I'm like, I'm not sold yet. And so then after that, David just focused on hanging out with me. We were chilling, and we went to the the Vosen Festival, and on the way back on the train station, because we we took the train, on the way back, we get off the train, and there's two sister missionaries lost at the train station looking for directions. And at that moment, and they were the sisters who are meant to administer military members, and I am a military member, right? You see, you see, it's not a coincidence that that happened, but David, like, he sees the sisters and he's like, he lay it, it's the missionaries, it's the missionaries, can we go talk to him? And in my mind, I'm like, okay, it's a little weird, but at the same time, after what just happened with me and Satan in my home and Jesus, like, eh, and also I was like, they're cute, they're from Utah, they're not American soldiers, they're not Germans. I'm sick of talking to the Germans and the American soldiers. I want someone who's just regular from the States to talk to, and they're from Utah, possibly. Yeah, go talk about Utah, but I'm not gonna tell them I'm inactive. That's why I told myself. So we go up there, we start talking to them, and I'm thinking they're cute. And David he turns to me, and this big grin just comes on his face. He goes to him, he's like, Tyler doesn't go to church, throws me right under the bus. And I'm just like, and then the sisters they just light up, they're like, and they're like, Can we get your number? And then my mind, I'm like, they're cute, okay. Gave him my number at that moment, and I was like, the Lord knew what he was doing, and so I gave him my number and then we parted ways, right? And then I was like, I was telling myself, like, they invited us to go to state conference, so we went to church that but it was state conference and we missed it, and so we didn't really end up going to church that Sunday. So I was like, I didn't even fit my church clothes at the time, so it was I was okay with that. But then I after my brother left, I was like, I'm not going back to church, bro. I'm not like unless these sisters really make it look like they want me there, I'm not going, right? And then they started hitting me up. You want to come to game night? You want to come to game night? You want to come to church? And I was like, oh, fine, yeah, I'll come. So I shut, I decided to go. And that first Sunday I went, I was just like, Lord forgive me, I'm a sinner, I do a lot of bad stuff. I'm going, I know this is a church, so I'm going in, right? So I go in and I try to hide in the back like everyone does, and the sisters wouldn't let me do that. They just they they they they they scout you down like bloodhounds, and they sit right next to you. And so they basically after that first Sunday, I was just like, okay, whatever, went home, didn't think much about it. A few days later, I was like, you know, I went to bed one night, right? Just a few days later. I closed all the doors and I turned off all the lights in my home and I went to sleep. And then when I woke up the next morning, all the doors and all the lights were open and on, and I was kind of freaked out because I was like, something went through my home. And I I thought it was Satan or a demon came back because I think because of that, I started thinking about that blessing. It's based off both of our faith. My faith isn't good enough. I'm the reason why Satan's coming back, you know what I mean? And I feel differently now about it because I feel like the spirit told me that I was like an angel that came through to do that, but little little anyway. But basically at that moment, I was just like spooked out. So I go into my room and I started to pray, and I'm like, Lord, and this is like the most humble prayer I've ever prayed in my life. I'm like, Lord, I can't do it no more. I can't keep the evil out of my life. I just can't do it. I'll do what you want, I'll go to church, I'll do the things you asked me, just please keep the evil in my life. I can't do it. And I was crying in this prayer. I was like an absolute mess. And after the prayer was done, I I kind of start, I just started watching Facebook videos. And I came across this video of the utopian experiment, mice experiment, where they put mice in the perfect society and it falls apart because they have everything they need and they just turn against each other and they get depressed and die. And I just had this weird, I had like I started feeling the spirit, bro, at that moment because I didn't understand what the spirit, how the spirit spoke, but I felt like uh I felt like this feeling, and I just felt like these thoughts like you need to write, you need to write. Grab your old prayer journal and write. So I grabbed my old prayer journal and I started to like write, and I was like, mice are like men, hard times create strong men, strong men create weak times, weak times, uh sorry, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create uh weak men, and weak men create back bad times. And it's the cycle that always repeats itself, the pride cycle, right? And I was writing the only way to break this through Jesus Christ. And I just started writing about Jesus. I was like, I've never done this before. I just started writing about Jesus, right? And at that moment, I just felt like something came over me. And I felt like I had my the arm that I was using the right with something took control. I had no control over my right arm. And that exact moment I felt like words come directly into my mind, and it was the same words that were coming onto the paper, and I was like, do not sorrow, my son. I'm like, is this real? And I was like, do not sorrow, my son, for I love you. And I was like, is this real? Is this yes, this is Jesus? Get your blessings. And I was just like, at that moment, I was like freaking mind blown, right? I was like, oh freaking mind blown. I was just like, I was just spoken to by Jesus Christ, right? I was just spoken to, but like it was like he did it through me. And I was just like, I didn't understand it, but I was like, I knew it was real at that moment. And I was so like, I was like, what just happened? And so that next Sunday, I was like excited to go to church, right? I was like, what's gonna happen now? So I go to church and I'm sitting there in sacrament meeting, you know, and like halfway through the spirit of God, like the entire time I've experienced the church, I've never seen people stand up and sing in sacrifice. They've always been sitting, and that so this was like bizarre to me. Halfway through the song, everyone just stood up. And at that exact moment, I heard the voice again. It was like, but it was like loud. It was like the eye of the Lord's upon you. I started looking around and I'm like, who said that? You know? And everyone's singing, they're like they're singing the words, and they're like, Okay. And then so I get up and I started singing. And when I started driving home, I was driving home and my passenger seat was empty. But then I started like I could feel like the presence of someone sitting there, and I heard a voice speak to me, like the Lord's waiting for you in your home. I'm like, and I couldn't see anyone sitting there, but I heard it, and like, and I could feel it. It's like there's someone there, and I'm like, okay. I'm like, am I gonna see Jesus or something? So I get in my when I get to my apartment, I'm expecting to see Jesus Christ there. I get into my my apartment, I don't see anyone in there. I'm like, what's going on? Right? What's going on? And I started walking in there and I hear this voice, pray. I'm like, so I go to my kitchen table and I begin to pray. And that moment, I just have a full-blown vision. Like it was like I was in it. And I'm in I'm in the eye of a hurricane, and I'm looking down, I see the old city of Jerusalem, and there's like a vortex of sand consuming this city. As it's sinking down, I hear the voice of the Lord, like I hear the Lord speak to me in this moment. He's like, Tyler, there's a storm coming. Half of my people are not ready. Will you be a warrior of the sun? Will you fight for me? At that moment, I'm like, God is speaking to me. Like, I'm like, I'm a I'm taking a like I'm hearing him speak to me. And I'm just like, yes, I'll fight for you. I'll I'll I'll I'll be a soldier, I'll fight for you, you know what I mean? And then after that division ended, and I was like, I was in awe. I was like, whoa, you know, and I'm like, I don't know who to talk to about this, right? I'm like, this is something I've never experienced before. And so I'm like, well, I don't know. I go to bed that night and I have a dream. This is like the this is where it gets starts. This is where the this gets good. So I'm in this dream and I see a fiery city, it's in ruins, right? It's old, eight Metzopotania old, and I'm sitting there and hear a voice, Sodom. I look around, I'm like looking for, and I hear sodom again. And I look around, I just see fire and ruin. And then I hear sodom for like a third time, and I turn, and then I see an ocean. I w I I walk over to this ocean and I realize it was the Dead Sea after I woke up, but I walk into it, and when I became submerged, the dream changed. And then I was in like a glass boxed room. And this dream, I was like switching from first person to third person, and then in this glass boxed room, it starts filling up, and there's no way out. There's no way out. And there's a man sitting in the corner, completely calm and cross flagged. He's just like he's like chilling with his legs like this, you know, he's just chilling, completely calm. And this room starts filling up with water. And it goes above his head, and he's he's he's breathing just fine. And me, I have a fear of drowning, right? I've always had a fear of drowning. I grew up in the deserts of Utah. And so it started raising up, and I'm just like freaking out. And when the room got about one-third of the way full, I heard the voice, Tyler, why did we train? As a soldier, we trained for the coming battle to be prepared for what's gonna happen, you know? Be ready for what's what we need to be ready for. And that's what training's all about. And so the water continued to rise at that point. This time I'm freaking out. I'm like swimming and swimming. I'm like, I'm freaking out. And the water got two-thirds of the way full, and I heard the voice even louder. Tyler, why did we train? I'm like, you know, from I'm like, this dream was like almost feeling real at this point, right? And then the water continued to rise, and it got to the point where I had about this much air left, like uh just a head full of air. And I like take my last gasp of air, and the water goes above my head. At this point, the box is full. And I look down at the man who was sitting at the very bottom of the box, the one who was just chilling, and nothing wrong with him. It zooms into his face, and I see it's the face of Jesus Christ. And he opens his mouth and with a loud, thunderous voice, he's like, Tyler, why did we train? In that moment, I woke up. And when I woke up, I felt like extreme peace on my chest. I was like calm and peaceful. It was like the most peaceful I ever felt in my entire life. And I'm laying there, I'm just like, oh, and I looked, and I'm where that spot where I saw Satan standing in my room. I literally saw two white figures, like glowing white figures, like shapeless people, soft glowing white lights, standing in my room. And I was like, it was like it's almost like I felt love itself at this moment. It was like so peaceful and majestic. And I was just like, huh. In my mind, I was like, is that the father and the son? Because that's how I that's the only thing I could feel at the time. That's what I thought. And I heard yes, I heard like a yes in my mind, go to sleep. And I just fell right back and knocked out. I was awake. I know when I'm awake when it compared to when I'm asleep. I just knocked out after that. And when I fell back asleep, I started having dreams right out of the book of Revelation. So I was like seeing like revelations, like symbolic dreams, right? Or destruction, wars, and all kinds of stuff, right? And then I see a fiery field. Jesus Christ walks up to me in the fiery field and he's like, Tyler, I'm coming back. You need to get people ready. And I was like, after that, I start, it was mind-blowing because I start having dreams every night after that. Because I was like going from not barely having dreams to having dreams like every night. And at this point, this is right before the October attacks in Israel, when you know how October had the big uh the when the Palestine attacked Israel. This is right before this is all happening, and so I'm like mind blown, right? And at this point, I'm like, okay, I'm done drinking, I'm done with pornography, like I'm gonna try to stop. So I try to stop, right? And I go, I'm like struggling because I went to the shower one day and I just like I need to do it. I need to do it. And I was sort of thinking about some stuff, and I was like, I was I was you know, and then I felt like this overwhelming sadness come over me. And then I felt a hand come to my chest, and I heard Jesus speak to me. He was like, Tyler, you don't need this anymore. And at that moment I didn't have the urge to look at porn. It was like he took it from me. He took it, he took it from me. It was like he freed me at that moment because I could not stop doing it, and I didn't want to do it no more. And he he took it from me. And I was I was I was amazed, right? And after this, I started reading my scriptures. I was reading the Book of Mormon, and I was still angry at the church, and I was like, I'd pray to the Lord, like, why this church? Why this church? There's so many churches, why this one? You know, I I'd literally be like screaming at him, asking this, because I just didn't want to accept the LDS church. And literally, he gave me a vision of Joseph Smith in the woods, and I have a I literally drew out this vision I had. It's like the painting almost. And I see Joseph Smith on his back, like the young Joseph Smith on his back with his hand out, and I see like the Father, this I see Jesus Christ like visible, but the Heavenly Father's face, he's like obscured. He won't like, I don't get to see his face. But I can see like the white, the light, and it's the whole scene that you see in the first vision. I'm seeing this, and I'm like, okay. And then he starts showing me visions of us going to like different worlds, like like an army of white soldiers, like different rivers or streams going throughout the galaxy, and all these worlds start filling with light, and then the Lord's hand gathers them all, and then they brings the whole universe into his scepter, and he's sitting on his throne. I'm just like, and I start, you know, like and then when I end up when I talk to my brothers later about this, like, bro, that's like from the Doctrine of Covenants. I'm like, I haven't read the Doctrine Covenants, I don't even know that was in the Doctrine Covenants. Like, stuff I you know, I'm saying, like, and so he's like, we're just talking about this stuff. But one day, right, you know, the day Russell Ballard died, basically I heard the Lord's speech, but hey, a prophet's gonna die tomorrow. And I didn't understand that we considered the the apostles as prophets at the time. I was like, President Nelson's gonna die tomorrow. I'm like, I don't know if this is true. So I called David up. Hey, David, something's gonna happen in the church tomorrow. Watch the news, right? And literally, like the day he uh Russell Ballard died, they didn't announce it, they announced it the day after. And so my brother was like, nothing happened, right? He was kind of like pissed off at me. And then the day after they announced it, and he calls me back up. He's like, dude, how did you know? I was like, the Lord told me. And he was kind of confused after that point. And so during the this is when stuff started getting weird because I started reading scriptures and I would read it outward out loud, and I would start speaking in a language I didn't understand, and I would try to speak English, and it was like nothing would come out that was English. I didn't understand it, and I'd be like, What am I speaking? And it was right at the part when I was reading like in the Bible about Paul speaking in tongues. Like, this is like it was like it was blind, I was like experiencing the Holy Ghost on like full blast at this point in my life, right? But at the same time, though, Satan came back, and at this point I heard Satan started coming, I'm God, I'm Jesus. And he started trying to get me. This is right when the October attack happened with the Palestine, and the entire US Army is like up in arms, right? Everyone's freaking out, right? And and I I have Jesus trying to speak to me and I have Satan trying to speak to me at the same time. I didn't know how to turn between spirits at that moment, and he's like, This is World War III, bro, this is the battle of Armageddon, get ready. That's what Satan was saying. And I'm like, Jesus, like, uh-uh-uh-uh. You know, I'm like, I didn't know who was going on. And so, and then this started happening when I was at work, and literally it got so bad that I was like, I couldn't even think straight. And so, like, I wanted to go home and I went to the chapel and said, Hey, can I go home? And you're like, no. They thought I was talking about going home to Utah. Eventually I just get into my truck and I start driving, and I lose control and I get into an accident on base. And I end up going off a hill. And there's these, when I was going off this hill, there's like two cement barriers that would like kill me if I would have made contact with them. And this is the second accident where I lose my second truck. And so as I go off this hill, I feel I'm like, Jesus, take the wheel. And it's like the truck drove itself at that moment. I didn't even have and it like dodged the pillars. And then I basically, when I, after that accident ended, right, the I heard the savior spun to the church, run to the church, right? And after the MPs showed up, military police, you know, the German police, they they arrested me and they took me to the hospital. And they're like, What's going on? And they're trying to figure out what's going on with me, right? And they, you know, it's just kind of I was there, right? And then they sent me to a mental ward and they started doing brain scans on me, and they did a brain scan. And when the doctor, like when I was sitting there, they were putting me on all these different medications, they're like testing, experimenting on me, trying to see what worked, see what get the voices to stop. And I'm sitting there, and the doctor pulls me aside and say, Hey, we did your brain scans, and we don't know what's wrong with you. People who have schizophrenia or psychosis or any of these mental disorders, right? Usually you could see something on their brain that shows us what's going on. We can't see anything with you. Like, we don't know what's going on with you. We're like, hmm. So eventually, right? And they they realize none of the medication they were giving me was working. And so finally they're like, they gave me this mild stuff, right? Something that they could say they're prescribing with, and then they released me. They're like, okay, he's stable, let him go. Because all I was telling them was like, I hear Satan, I saw Jesus, I saw Satan, I'm like, the second coming, I'm having dreams of revelations. Like I was telling them because all I could hear at that moment was the savior say, Tell the truth. So I'm like telling the truth, like what I'm experiencing, right? And nobody believes me. Nobody believes me. And so like they release me, and when I get back to my unit, there's like an investigation going against me, there's charges, and I'm just like, You kidding me, right? Like, they're like the whole my whole life was falling apart at that moment, and I was scared. I was like, what's gonna happen? Am I gonna go to jail? Am I gonna get locked up? Like I got from this accident because the you know, Germany, different rules and stuff like that. And at that moment, I just started going and seeing the therapists, and I was just talking with them, and nothing was really connecting. And then during that first month, I got super sick. And I was and they just told me to take them, take a couple months off. So I'm like taking a couple months off, and my family's worried, everyone's worried, the missionaries are coming, giving me blessings. I just get super sick. And during that time, I started seeing like spirits all around my house, like tons of spirits, like Satan spirits, right? And they're like wanting to come in my house, but they're all like outside, right? I can see them through the windows, and I'm like freaked out. I'm like, okay. This point I stopped playing and I stopped playing violent video games. I had, you know, I started following the word of wisdom. I was praying five times a day. Like, I was doing everything I could to keep these spirits out. And then literally, my dad had his own little podcast called Three Dad Bods. It was kind of like a you know old man's podcast. And he got so Vinny, I know Vinny uh he was a guy who you interviewed on your podcast, actually.

Scott Brandley: 54:19

Yeah, we've met him on a couple times, Vinnie Tolman.

Tyler Karl Christen: 54:22

Yeah, Vid Tolman. And so my dad got me in touch with Vid Tolman, and Vid Tolman started coaching me when it came to spiritual matters because he was like, bro, you're you're talking to demons and you're talking to angels right now. You don't know who you're talking to right now, you don't know how to discern. Like, I'm reading the Bible, I'm reading the Book of Mormon, but I don't know what to do. So he starts teaching, like, you need to discern, bro, you need to use the priesthood, you need to because at this moment, I remember hearing Jesus one day tell me, like, one day I was like, the priesthood's been restored to you. And I was like, that really like hit me home. So Vinny's telling me about this stuff, right? And I start getting visited by some angels. And I told you about my daughter back in like when I was in Florida. She came back and visited me. And I knew it was her because the way she spoke, the way she was, and I was like, and then is it did Jesus send you? Jesus, Jesus Christ send you, because Satan will claim to be Jesus, but he can't be claimed to be Jesus Christ, right? And so I had to be like, I had to be like in the name of Jesus Christ, the priesthood, authority of the Melchizedek, or at the time I had the Ronic priesthood, I was like, Who are you, you know? And she's like, I'm your daughter, who didn't get to live, you know. Like, I I'm on the other side, and she came to minister to me, right? She's like, I love you, dad, but you need to forgive yourself. Now, like that was like a huge turning moment for me. So I had to forgive myself at that moment. And and this is right when the the the senior missionaries, they were like grandparents to me in Germany, like they were so kind to me, and they were like trying to get me ready to go to the temple because I had never been in the temple, never been, because it was just like something I just didn't ever thought. I never thought I would go to the temple in my life, and I used to tell myself God would never pick me. Like these are the things I would tell myself, and yeah, they were getting me ready to go to the temple, and so eventually I go to the temple and it was amazing, right? And I and I started having dreams about my ancestors as I would go to the temple, and we start doing this like temple trip every month, and I would have dreams about the Apostle Peter, I would have like visions, and I would start seeing things like I would have visions of Jesus and the wars. I just and I'd have visions of stuff that would happen in the future of that day. I remember I had to go to the German DMV to do some paperwork from the truck I just lost. And as I was driving there, that morning before it had a vision of storm clouds coming across the city. And when I was driving there later that day, I saw that exact same scene happen. I was like, the Lord is showing me the future. Like it everything they were though they say about the spirit of prophecy, this of the future, the gift of tongues, and all that's all true. And literally, I started having all my dreams I was pissed off about because I couldn't understand them, right? And I was like, and then next thing you know, I heard Jesus start speaking to me. He's like, Who's the great interpreter? I was like, Who? He's like, Jesus Christ. And that moment I start praying to the Lord, like in how like in the scriptures of Dan of Joseph of Egypt, and then Daniel and Lion's Den, and these old testament prophets who would just like, you know, would turn to the Lord to interpret dreams. I start doing that. And then I started the Lord started telling me what my dreams meant. And around and so as this I start going through these changes, Vinny stopped talking to me because he kind of he has a lot of people he was talking to. But you know, he told me that I would come home at the end of the summer, which was funny enough, I did, but we'll get to that later. But so as I'm having these experiences, I'm like, I'm like, I'm having like a transformation. Like the Holy Ghost would help me stop cursing. I used to curse like a sailor, but he told me stop drinking caffeine, right? So I stopped drinking caffeine, and also he told me like he helped me stop swearing. Like I would have times where I'm about to say the F word, or I'm about to say the, you know, I was like, and then the Holy Ghost would shut my mouth. I'd be like, thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. I would literally have moments like that, and I just felt like this great change come over me. And I then I start had like I started walking the streets with the missionaries, and I'd go to the game nights, I would start spending time and hanging out with the missionaries, and I would start giving out Book of Mormons with them. And then I got called to be the YSA rep and be a Sunday teacher for the for the 11-year-olds. And I was working with the old bishop, and we were like, the Lord paired me with the old bishop so I could, you know, grow with him, and he can kind of be there to teach me stuff. And it was just super cool what I was going through at that moment. And I started doing, I started doing, I felt, and I started seeing so many homeless people that the German people were ignoring in Stuttgart and the refugees and all that stuff. And I just the Lord put on my heart do a food drive. And so I started doing food drives for the homeless, and I started giving out food. I would ask the missionaries help to help pass this stuff out, right? And so I would just like start passing out food to the homeless people out there, and I was just feeling, I was feeling alive with the Holy Ghost that moment. And then around this same period of time, I was able, I gave my first talk. The, you know, I got called to be an elder. And I was how I was I was feeling, and then I heard the spirit say, You need to start dating. The Lord's like, you need to start dating. I was like, There's no girls out here to date. I told myself I would stop dating because I can't, I don't trust myself around women anymore. Like I I I proved that I'm not worthy of a woman of God. Like, and the Lord's like, dude, you've changed. You need to start dating. I was like, how? He's like, get on mutual, get online, you know? And so I got on mutual and I started talking to girls, right? And during this time, I started having dreams of going to South America. Like I'd climb this like ancient temples. I'm like in there in South America. America, right? And I'm looking for something. And I start, I'd climb the temple, and there'd be a woman in a wedding dress waiting for me there, right? And literally, I would start having dreams of going to like a wedding banquet, and then we it was like a big party, and we go to like the olive tree theater, and it was all symbolic, right? And I had a dream where my fiancee approaches me, and I had thrown a croissant into the trash, half eaten, and she pulls it out and she's like, Don't ever throw this away. And this is before I realized who was because I later had a vision of that dream later on when I met her later on, and I recognized it was hers. It'll be cool when I get to that part. But basically, I dreamed about my fiance before I met her. Because what happened later was I got the priesthood, the med board came in and they said we're gonna retire you, there's no charges, and I was on my process of coming home at this point. And it was at the end of the summer, I came home, like Vinny said. And so I'm coming home, right? And literally in general conference, that like you know, like the next general conference, like I'll get to that point, but President Nelson talks about how the parable of the 10, this last general conference, right? President Nelson talks about the parable of the 10th version, and it matches that first vision the Lord gave me, telling me how half the church, half his people weren't ready. It's like it all matches up. And so like I come home, and on the third day I came home, I have this vision where I see a big earthquake hit Utah and like the Provo Dam break, and I see like all this destruction, but then the only thing that isn't being touched is the church. The temples, the the steakhouses, like the church is completely fine when all this and I see the mountain coming down, killing all the rich houses and stuff, and I hear the voice of the Lord say, Utah needs to repent. I was like scared because it was like the most realistic vision I've ever had in my life. And then after that ended, I'm like, what's going on? Lord's like, you got ministering work to do here in Utah, right? You gotta bring people back to the church. Like, there's so many people in Utah who've gone astray. I'm like, you're right, you know? It's like you're Tyler, I brought you back so you can teach people that even people who've done all this evil can still you can come back, right? And so that's what I felt like I need to do. And so as I'm like coming home and adjusting and being home, I'm doing like because I wasn't because what's interesting is when I was in Germany in January, I put in to get my patriarchal blessing, like that first message that was written to me by the savior said. And every time the patriarch said I had to wait until October because there was only one English-speaking patriarch. So when I got home to Utah, the patriarch said, I'm not available till October. My local patriarch. And so I was like, okay, I'll wait for October. I thought I could get it sooner, but I guess I gotta wait until October. And when I when October came along, that's when I matched with Vivi on Mutual. This is really funny, actually, because at that point, like in September, I matched with Vivi, my fiance, and literally, like, she left me unread for a month on the app, like on typical online dating. We matched, she left me unread for a month. I messaged her and I was like, whatever, moved on, right? Month later, she and she messaged me, like, hey, I'm like, she messaged me back, and I was like, ah no, she's one of those women, stuck up, doesn't give men attention. She probably got, you know, I was like, nah, I ain't gonna deal with it, right? And at that moment, when I was about to just shoe it away, the this the spirit spoke. And it's like, hey, she's cute. I'm like, yeah, but she's one of the she's pretty. Fine, I'll text her. And I texted her back, and then after that, we started texting back and forth, and we start hitting it off, and we start sharing our testimonies, and we had very similar experiences, and I was like, Whoa, this girl's different. And I had prayed to the Lord to bring me to a woman who would put Jesus Christ first and would accept me for who I am. You know what I mean? And so I was mind-blown because I was like, this girl is great. But I was talking, you know, I was trying to figure out if she was the one. And at this point, I get my patriarchal blessing, and I found out I'm not part of the like the rest of my family. I got put into a different tribe, and I was just like, What? And then I in this blessing, this is the part I'm gonna share, is he said, you will soon meet a woman who completes who's here her weaknesses is you know, complement your strengths, right? And I was mind blown, and because that it was exactly when I started talking to Vivi, and as me and Vivi started talking, it was like it was paying out, right? It was it was playing out. Her she had a friend who had a dream about me that she was talking to a blonde guy in Utah, and she had a dream about a guy with a dog tag or like a necklace with the letter C on it, and my last name was Kristen, that I was wearing a dog tag with the cross on it, and like I was praying the Lord was like, take a hint, take a hint, Tyler, take a hint, and I was just like, it's all adding up. So I ended up just buying a ticket and going down there and asking her to be my girlfriend, and then at that moment I knew I wanted to marry her. I just knew it. And then so after that, our relationship just blossomed, and I had a dream when I came home from from Ecuador about the ring I was supposed to get her, and so I ended up buying it because she likes blue, and I got her a blue sapphire uh ring, and then our blue we just we start talking every pretty much we talk every day, and I just knew like Henley Father brought me to the perfect woman. And right now we're in the process of working through immigration so she can be here with me, and but it's been hard, but his I have it's it has the the most beautiful thing about it is every time we have a problem, we we we pre we bring up Jesus, right? And we turn to Jesus to help us solve our problems and it helps us get through the challenges, and it's she's just been amazing to me because of that, and I've been trying to be doing my best to be for her. And literally, when you put Jesus in the center of your relationship, it even a long-distant relationship with a woman in a different country, right? It makes it so much easier. Every long-distant relationship I had before this didn't work. And this one was working, right? This one was the one that was working, and it just was working too well, and they always say, like, in long-distance relationships, it forces you to communicate and get to know the person over your intimacy and physical touch. A lot of people get distracted by those things, and then they get will, it's like they get distracted by the flesh, and that's what I used to do, right? I had no access to that here, right? It was just like get to know her, and that's what I was doing, and it was just like it was amazing, and I just started feeling like everything expanding, and then the gift of interpreting dreams. I literally start understand other people's dreams when people would tell me their dreams, and I'd be like, dude, that's what it means. And then I like that's from Jesus, and then you know, my friend Jordan here, the one I'm in Las Vegas with, we met up, we became friends, and he started it kind of we started I started teaching him stuff, he started teaching me stuff, and we just started vibing with each other, and then we came here to Las Vegas basically to you know hang out with some of his friends and family, but also to share the Book of Mormon, right? We bought a bunch of bags of Book of Mormons, and now we're out here preaching the gospel to people and sharing the Book of Mormon, and like he literally had a dream that came true because like he had a dream. He told me about it, and like that's a warning. And then literally the other night it happened, and we're just like, what? You know, because like because we're both learning how to understand our dreams from Jesus, and because he's been talking to us through our dreams, and he does speak the dream. I tell everyone this if you ever get a dream that you don't understand, write it down and then pray to Jesus, like what does this mean? And then write it down again. The spirit will help you understand what it means. You'll you'll you will have different, you'll you'll hear him speak differently. It'll be like, it actually means this dude. But it doesn't happen like right, you have to be willing to do the work to understand. Like you have to you have a sense, for example, a car means the church, right? At the beginning I didn't understand it because usually it's like in the in the days of the Hebrews, ships used to be symbolic of the church, right? But then the Lord would speak to me with modern symbols, like I see myself driving a truck, and I started realizing that was the church, my journey in the church. And so the spirit started making me understand what my dreams meant. And it was so cool, like to understand what my dreams were. And so basically, I've been wanting to get my story out to share this, because I'm eventually trying to start my own podcast someday to hear, so I could start helping people my age group, right? Because I feel like my biggest issue is trying to get to a podcast, but take my story to share this, and so I was like reaching out, reaching out, reaching out. Nobody was giving me the second of time, not even the daylight, to like share it because everyone's like busy, because either because it was either people were having kids or they're busy, or they just were never getting back to me. And I just like I want to do it, but it's it's it's appropriate now that it's actually I feel like this is going on the Lord's time, not mine. That's the reason why everything happens for a reason. And so I just yeah, a lot of things happened for me, and it's it's it was like oh, like a roller coaster of events that happened, and it's just like so many things, and I just I do believe like when President Elson said, and this still sticks with me, is that this generation was like a chosen generation. We're gonna experience miracles that we've never seen before. Where we were held in the reserve for a reason. He and I feel Jesus is calling back his people because there's so much wickedness going on in the earth right now. Like when I look like that's what really helped me drive it to a nail to come back, too. Like Jesus was showing me what was a good, he showed me how he taught me how to discern between good and evil in the spirits, and he's like, This entire experience was Jesus teaching me, and I felt like I had this personal, like I can hear him speak to me. That's what people don't realize is everyone can hear Jesus speak to them if they believe it can happen. I would ask Jesus, like, hey, Jesus, I can hear you speak to me. Can everyone else hear you speak like that? He's like, Yes, they have to believe that it can happen, right? And I was like, that's cool, and that's why I like to sharing it's like because it's like this is like the same things that the apostles like try to preach to people like the in the LDS church, like they'll say, Hey, I hear I hear the savior speak. You gotta be willing to listen. I remember I was in the temple one day, like this one of the temple workers when I was working in the temple for a short period of time in the Tippenogos, because I had dreams about going to Mount Tipponogas, like the mountain, and I was with my fiance, yeah. I realized it meant to go work in the temple, and so I worked there for a short period of time before I moved. But there's a man in the temple who's like, You're a seeker. I'm like, What? A seeker? What do you mean? It's like someone who seeks knowledge. I was like, Oh, so I'm seeking the truth through Jesus. And it's like my favorite scripture, Matthew 7, 7. Ask, you shall receive, knock, and the door will be open to you, right? And the heavens will be like it's just like that is like the truth there. Too many people don't seek it. And it's when I started seeking Jesus in my seventh, and it was crazy, it was my seventh year in the army. The seventh of the perfect number of completion. That's when I came back, right? And then my sixth years of service, I was like enslaved, I was in servitude, the years of man, I was working, I was, and I've never been so happy since I came back to the church. It was like when I was in the military, when I was away, there was always something dead in me. I always felt dark. I would have dreams where I'm like, I would have these dreams where I'm a zombie, and then someone like heals me, and I'm no longer a zombie, and I'm awake, and I see the infection, the apocalypse around me, and I'm like, oh no, there's only a few of us who are awake and not zombies. And I feel that that's like with the world right now. And I feel so happy and alive now. Like I never could, even when things are going wrong and I'm miserable and I'm angry. I know I have Jesus because I'll have times where I'm angry and I just want to be angry. I feel Jesus, hey Tyler, he'll you literally start speaking, hey Tyler, forgive Vivi or forgive David, forgive Eric. Don't be angry right now, it's not gonna fix this. He'll start like, even though I'm like, leave me alone, Jesus. Like, Tyler, you asked me to be in your every day of every second of your life. Didn't you ask for that? It's like I did. It's like let me be here for you. I'm like, fine. And then also start having Jesus like he'll he'll I don't feel alone because my biggest problem is I always felt alone. He's like, Tyler, I made you different. You always felt outside, you always felt like an outcast, an outsider gram. You were bullied as a kid, you had all these things going on because I needed you to need me. They need you to teach, they need you because you need to teach them about me. And I was just like, So it's just Jesus is awesome. Like, yeah, when you really get to know him, he's awesome.

Scott Brandley: 1:12:49

Yeah, the your story is interesting. I mean, we've had more and more people that have that are that have unique gifts of the spirit that have been on the show, especially recently, and and you're like, this is really interesting because we, I mean, I don't know, like I don't feel a lot of those things, but and you read the scriptures and and it talks about the gifts of the spirit, and you want them, right? Like as members of the church, you're like, I want to have that, and then you think, well, maybe it maybe there's something wrong with me that I don't have those things, but I think every one of us has different gifts, and you obviously have some unique gifts that a lot of people don't have, right? But God uses us all in different ways, and he uses the gifts that we do have in to his advantage to help move the work forward, right? So the the things that you've gone through are unique to you because they had to be in order for you to be where you are now.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:13:54

I totally agree with that. Like right, I've had therapists tell me I'm crazy, and I've had therapists tell you this is from God, right? It's like it's it's it's a it's a journey.

Scott Brandley: 1:14:06

But would but you wouldn't be where you are now, you wouldn't have the testimony you have now if you wouldn't have gone through what you uniquely went through to get to this place, right? And so that's what had to happen. And because of you, because you have those unique gifts, you're able to recognize them now as you're as you're older, as you've seen the dark side of the world, as you've seen the good in the world, you now have a unique perspective that you can look at the world through the gifts that you have to do something great for God.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:14:37

Yeah, I have something I forgot to share, and I think this is really cool. Okay, um, one thing it reminds me of Joseph Smith. This is me testifying Joseph Smith is a real prophet because one of the things I feel like back when I was in Germany, the Lord wanted to let me understand how Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I was fasting for 40 hours and I had some cool experiences, and I fasted again for 34 hours, right? And on the last day of my fast, I woke up one one morning and I had writing on my hand. Like on the sear stones that Joseph Smith had when he translated the plates, words would appear on a stone, and he would have to like, you know, he would translate that way. And literally, I saw a writing on my hand said angel on my hand. And I was like, middle, I just woke up and I'm like, I'm like, what? And I'm like, is this real? I blinked and then it said yes. And I was like, I blinked again. Is this from is this Satan? And it was like, no. It was like this someone wrote with a Sharpie on my hand, but it the words would disappear and change. And I was blank, okay, who's the angel? I blinked and it said, you. And I was like, what? And it's like, I blinked again, is this real? And then I rubbed my eyes and it was gone. Right? And then I had this happen again where I had a dream where I felt like the Lord was trying to speak to me, and it was like a lot of stuff happened, and I woke up, my phone screen here, right? And I I drew a lot of visions of these dreams and visions I had, because right on here on this phone screen, you can't really see it, but that's a vision I had, right? Or I had me and my daughter running into heaven to the tree of life. But basically, I'll send you the picture so you you can show it on the screen for everyone who wants to see it. But on my screen, right, it just shows like that. That's all it shows. I woke up that morning and it was that screen you saw on my phone, but it was like someone wrote with Sharpie on my screen saying heaven was real, and I kind of like had to check it again, you know, and it it was it was nothing there. But the Lord showed me that he can appear, like he will show this the spirit will write, like he will write words with the spirit to show you the truth, and then he could take it away in an instant. Like, and that just proved to me the way Joseph Smith translated the pro the the golden plates was true. Like, I will testify. I will I on my life I swear that it's true because I personally experienced that with my hand and with my cell phone, right? And I I didn't have a stone to do it, but the stone was a tool because it was symbolic of Jesus Christ as a rock, right? And so for me, that was just like mind-blowing. Like, God can do anything.

Scott Brandley: 1:17:11

Yeah. Wow. Man, this is this has been a unique podcast, Tyler.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:17:18

I'm sorry, but it might happen to a lot.

Scott Brandley: 1:17:20

No, it's that's that's fine. Like the the reason why the reason why I I started this podcast was so people could share their stories, right? We don't get to hear things like this. Um, I mean, stories typically happen inside our wards, right? People, when they give a talk, they might share some personal experiences or maybe in a class, but you don't get outside of that and your family, you don't get to hear other members' experiences, and especially like their life experience, right? You don't get to hear their whole story from when they're young to what to where they are now, right? And so this is good. Like it's good to get different perspectives to hear different people's stories because each one of us is unique, each one of us has special gifts, and God speaks to us in in unique ways and through different events and and things that we go through in life. So I'm I'm glad that you reached out. I think this is good. I think it gives people a different perspective. Um, because we are told that there are going to be more miracles, there are going to be more um, you know, God's going to reveal Himself in unique ways as we get closer to the end. And your story is is an example of some of those things that that I think are starting to happen.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:18:39

It's like in the book of Acts, the young and the old will have dreams and visions and prophesies, right? And I believe like this is a testament to the young people right now is that like people my age and younger, like this can happen to you too. It's not just exclusive to our fathers or our mothers, you know.

Scott Brandley: 1:18:58

Yeah. So um, as we start to kind of wrap up here, do you have any any last thoughts or things that you'd like to share with people that are that are watching?

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:19:11

I would say it all started for me when I chose to call on the name of Jesus Christ, plain simple. When I chose to take a leap of faith, it was like I'm gonna call on Jesus and believe that when I needed him most, right? I was like, Jesus, I don't know if you're gonna come through, but I need you. It was a small grain of faith, right? And it turned it was like a mustard seed of faith, and it turned into a freaking tree, like a mu a a mountain, like in the smallest, it's like the same said, the smallest amount of faith, the smallest amount of belief can move mountains, right? For me, that's what happened in my life. And I and my faith has been growing every day. And the more I testify, and the more I choose to seek the truth and the belief, the more it grows, and the more I experience. I saw I forgot the Mentioned, I saw a guy wake up from a coma because, like, her his girlfriend said, We know we're not from the same church. This is back when I was a Germany, but can you get your church to pray for me? And I went to a YSA conference and asked everyone to pray for him. And then when I went to the temple, I heard the spirit say, Kevin's okay. And when I came back, his girlfriend said it was a miracle. He woke up without brain damage, like the doctor said he was gonna do. And so, like, stuff like that happens for people like us. And you just have to have faith that Jesus still does miracles. And that's just you just it's like be a seeker and seek the heaven. And sometimes when we want things to happen, it won't happen when we want it, but it happens how we need it. And we just have to learn how to listen to Jesus. Like, like I said, he speaks through our dreams, he'll speak through people, he'll speak. Like I've had times when I'm reading the scripture and I felt my finger guided to certain words in the script. He will speak to us in so many different ways, but we have to be receptive for him. And sometimes we have to be broken to receive it. And that's how it was for me. I had to be broken to receive because our pride's the biggest blocker. When we believe those things can't happen to us, you're challenging God. And that's what I did and unknowingly, but I did that. And God was like, Bro, you really you really want to try me. I'm gonna show you, and you're gonna believe after that. And I'm like, and now you're gonna go share it. I'm like, Yep, gave my life after that, you know? And so truly, like, that's when I like I watched the Passion of the Christ, and I I totally cried like a little baby, and I watched the chosen. Like, I recommend watch the chosen, watch the Passion of the Christ, read the Book of Mormon all the way through. That's what really because I made a commitment to read it all the way through, and prayed if the truth, the truth, the church was true. Like Joseph Smith said when he started church, read the book of Mormon, pray if it's true. That's what I did, and blatantly the savior is like, here's a vision, dude. Like, he gives you what you need, and you have to be willing to accept it, you have to seek it, you have to want it. If you don't want it, you're not gonna get it.

Scott Brandley: 1:22:10

Yeah, well, that's uh yeah, great, great words of encouragement and and advice.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:22:20

So I'm passing. I get fired up. I'm sorry.

Scott Brandley: 1:22:24

No, I no, it's that was really good. And I I really appreciate you having the courage to come and share this because I mean a lot of the things you've shared are outside of uh I think what most members um experience, right? But it's happening, like I said, it's happening more frequently.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:22:44

And it's not just happening in our church, too. When I was talking to Vinnie, who's talking to guys of different Catholic Protestants, and they're all experiencing similar stuff, like it's happening to people who are seeking Jesus. And us as members, we got to remember the most important part is seeking Jesus. We we got to put Jesus as the center of our faith and religion. Yes, we have the prophets and the apostles, but they're not Jesus, like they're speaking for Jesus, they're trying to point you to Jesus. If you're not seeking Jesus, what are you seeking?

Scott Brandley: 1:23:15

Yeah, I got one. So that brings me to a question that I have for you. I mean, you talk about seeking Jesus a lot. I know as members of the church, we talk to God a lot, but we very rarely ever talk to Jesus. At least I don't. The way you gotta seems like you like you do, so like share some of that.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:23:35

Like, what do you think about that? I want to know Henry Father, I want to have a relationship, but you cannot go to the father without going to the son. Jesus paid the price for our sins, and he took responsibility for us. He's our he's our lazy, he's our lawyer, right? He's our representative, he is our administrator, he's our king, he is our brother who took responsibility for us, so we can be with the father. We have to turn to the Jesus, we we can't do it alone. We need Jesus' help. We can't. We need Jesus. We don't ask Jesus for help. It's gonna be harder because Heavenly Father wants us to rely through Jesus. Because if we have Jesus, we have his grace, and then we can receive what the Lord wants to give us. Heavenly Father wants us to go through Jesus because Jesus died on the cross for us. That's the atonement. The atonement doesn't work without Jesus. Miracles don't work without Jesus. The priesthood, like all these things that we were given, it's in the name of Jesus Christ. The church is in the name of Jesus Christ. Why do we have all the the temples? You see them on the temple. Everything we do in this church is literally to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Father in heaven said, This gospel is on the foundation of Jesus Christ. I remember one day, literally, when I was struggling, the Lord's like, Tyler, your life isn't set in stone. You can still do what you want, you have free will. Jesus Christ was the stone, his life was the one that was cut into the rock, he was the one that went the path that no one wanted to walk. So you can be free. And people, you have to understand what Jesus went through to truly understand why the father wants us to go through him. He literally is like our adoptive father. Like he is like, think about Hell and Father's the patriarch, right? But you if like you have a grandparent, right? And they're the patriarch of the family. Then you have your mom and dad, and they're responsible for raising you, and you fight with them a lot. You're disrespectful to them. They have to be like that's how we are with Jesus. Like, Helen Father, like I ain't gonna take that disrespect, right? But you need to come to my son, and he's gonna bring you to me. He's gonna, he's gonna, he's gonna help you get better. And so it's like he's our family, right? And Heavenly Father wants us to work with family, and we all have this ideology where we can do it alone and we can please God. We can't do it alone, we cannot please God by our own works. That's never gonna get you to heaven. You need the grace of Jesus Christ and his help to do the work, and with his help, you can do miracles greater than the savior, because the savior sees us doing miracles greater than him doing it himself. He wants to do it with us, he wants us to be a part of it, he wants us to be part of the one, he wants us to be part of sharing the gospel. Jesus wants us to be a part of it. This is his church, this is why it works through Jesus. Like, Heavenly Father is like Jesus is in charge of the world, but you guys gotta go through him before you come to me. Like, if you start understanding everything is connected with Jesus Christ, every ancient culture, like there are signs that point to Jesus. If you go look at every religion, every ancient culture through the history books, there are so many signs that point to Jesus. You just have to recognize like Jesus is the Son of God, He is part of the Godhead, right? He literally is who we say He is, He has He shares the power with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Like, that's why we have to go through him. Our Father is our Father, the Holy Ghost is our our spiritual brother, right? But so is Jesus. But Jesus is the the king now, right? He has been brought to his throne, he is the guy. Like, if you if you seek him, because we the goal is to get to the father, but we need Jesus to do it. We should, and the best way to seek the father is to also seek Jesus, because we want you need you need Jesus, and you have to want to Jesus. Jesus doesn't want to be in your life if you don't want him. He wants you, he wants to be in your life if you want him, but he wants to be in your life all the time. And it's like if you really want Jesus, Heavenly Father wants you. Because Heavenly Father wants you, but he doesn't want to deal with you if you don't want Jesus. It's like I'll be there, but like, dude, he died for you. You don't leave a brother who died for you. Don't the homie who protected you, man. You don't just abandon him. Like he here, he did the ultimate, you know. It's like if you start thinking about it, it makes sense.

Scott Brandley: 1:28:34

Yeah, that's that's you've taught me something, Tyler. I'm 50 and you've taught me something tonight. So really because honestly, like as a member of the church, like I feel like I need to always pray to God. And I thank God for Jesus. I thank God for Jesus, but I never actually thank Jesus. I never I never talk to Jesus, I never like ask Jesus for help.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:28:59

He wants a relationship with you.

Scott Brandley: 1:29:01

Right. I don't really have one. That's that's the crazy thing. Like, I'm grateful for Jesus and I say in the name of Jesus Christ for everything, right? Like I talk about him, I, but I never actually like thank him personally or or or try to have some like some kind of a relationship with Jesus. So that you've really opened my mind to um to something that I may have been missing.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:29:29

And I I promise you, if you start building that relationship with Jesus, you'll start building that relationship with Heavenly Father too, because Heavenly Father is gonna see you. He's like, I'm pleased, I'm happy. I see my sons working together. I want I want I want I want to show you stuff now. Like that's how it happens. I want to show you stuff now because you're you you you're being a family again. It's like that's how you make them happy. It's like it's how you you you can only you can only truly bring light unless you bring light together. It's like you have to accept light to share light, and it's just you obviously we pray to the Father and we seek the Father, but we also need to seek Jesus and the Holy Ghost because after you start seeking Jesus, you start to seek the Holy Ghost, right? It's literally connect you start building the relationship with all three of them if you start building a relationship with Jesus.

Scott Brandley: 1:30:29

Yeah. Well, thanks, man. I really appreciate that insight. That's I'm really gonna think a lot about that on how I can have a better relationship with Jesus.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:30:40

Oh, yeah, it's I really appreciate it, man. It's phenomenal. Like that's the thing that people don't realize. Sometimes, like, and this is like from a journey of taking a little bit from the Catholics, the Protestants, and our own church, and then free-thinking Christians off the internet, right? And I just kind of take a little because this is one thing I believe is true. We have a big piece of the puzzle, but they all also have a portion of the truth. And in the end, it doesn't matter if you're Latter-day Saint, Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, in the end, when Jesus comes back for the millennium, it ain't gonna be the Latter-day Saints of Jesus Christ. That's gonna be the church of Jesus Christ. Everyone's gonna be under Jesus Christ, and I'm just like, this is what I know. I'm like, because like in the book of Mormon, it's gonna be he said, if it says the church of Jesus Christ, it's of me, right? And so I'm just like, bro, he's gonna bring us all together, whether we like it or not. We're all gonna be one church in the millennium, so it's gonna be like, are we ready? Like, what's gonna unite us? What's gonna unite us? Jesus. And if we focus on Jesus, our freaking differences go away. And so many Christians in our church, another church like who accuse us of not being Christians, or we accuse them not having the truth. And it's like, why are we so focused on the negatives, right? And why don't we come together on Jesus? Because if we stop arguing and we start focusing on Jesus, bro, we might find a connection, and then they might see what our truths, and then we might see their truth, and then we might be able to come together, and they may it's it's like, why are we so focused on what brings us differently? Like, why we we we focus on the differences, right? And we should focus on Jesus and what he taught and the Savior. Like, it's the whole storm concept when Jesus walked in the water, focus on Jesus, and the storm will come. It's like most of the people who persecute our church, they're like, Oh, this prophet said this, this prophet said that. That's true, but what did how did Jesus live, right? Do we live like heathens? It's it's like I've been here's crazy. We're in here in Vegas with me and Jordan. We're talking, we have he has a bunch of Catholic friends, right? We're talking, we're and he let us stay at his home. We're there's no differences, he's open-minded, it's like it's all about Jesus. Like he he is like it's it's literally like you can get along with people from other faiths if Jesus is in the center of it. Like, there is no walls. Jesus isn't building a kingdom with walls, he's building a kingdom with no walls, so all his people may return to his his wedding feast. The only prisons that are built are the prisons we meet ourselves. Hell doesn't exist until we build the wall and separate ourselves from God. This judgment that's coming, it's because of our own actions, our own faith and our own beliefs and our own thoughts. It's our pride, it's our pride rock, our pride wall that keeps us away from Jesus and keeps us away from God. It's literally like you can claim to do miracles and good works, but in the end it doesn't matter if you don't have Jesus.

Scott Brandley: 1:33:40

Wow. Great words of advice, man. I really appreciate that.

Tyler Karl Christen: 1:33:45

I was like, I'm gonna keep talking and keep I'll keep talking if you keep asking me questions. I'm sorry.

Scott Brandley: 1:33:53

Dude, I really appreciate it. Um, thanks for being on the show. And thanks everyone for tuning in to hear Tyler um share some of his experiences and his thoughts. And if you have a story that you'd like to share, like Tyler, go to latterdaylights.com and let's have you on the show. Let's let's share some light. And if you like Tyler's story and it's inspired you tonight, go do your five-second missionary work, hit that share button, and let's let's get Tyler's story out there so we can enlighten and inspire others. So, with that, thanks again, Tyler. And thanks everyone for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next week with another episode of Latter Day Lights. Take care. Bye.