3 Nephi 28

He then asked them again, this time one by one, what they really wanted from him, what kind of parting gift. All but three of them said, “As soon as you think we’re ready, take us home to you. A nice, peaceful death with a slick route to heaven—and don’t let that gate scrape our shoulders.”

“That’s nice. I’m even a little flattered. I’ll tell you what: you get to live in good health till you’re 72 and then—pffft!—you’re back with me, resting comfortably.”

Then he turned to the other three, and said, “You’re being pretty tight-lipped. Speak up.”

They were clearly embarrassed. Not a sound.

“Not to worry. You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? What kind of God would I be if I didn’t? You want to be like my dear friend John back in Jerusalem and never face death but instead just be eerily transformed quasi-resurrectionally when I return to earth for the last time, thousands of years from now. You want to live on till then, escape pain, other than disgust at the world’s spiraling descent. But you want this all just to keep preaching and helping, almost as if you were hyper-immune savior beings from another planet.

“I’m in. Wish granted. You’ll see things you could never imagine—and that will happen to you every century or so, and eventually every decade or less. You’ll never guess what’s ahead. But your amazement will wear a bright cap of joy. People will see it in you, if and when you spend time with people not like yourselves. Which, of course, you’ll have to do to hold up your end of the bargain.”

He walked to each of the other nine and touched their foreheads. Then he left. Just walked into the air.

With that, the untouched three felt a rush of divine madness, each traveling to a series of heavens past language or representation, spirits flailing outside of their bodies perhaps—who knows?—until they felt one with their essence, the founding agent of the cosmos, the God of the atomic field and even the vision that surrounds the unspeakable questions that haunt the entire spectrum of color and hue, light and darkness

“Don’t even try to say what this is,” a voice said. Maybe Jesus’ from an alternate dimension, or maybe someone or thing profounder than individual identity.

It was an insurgency of the soul. The spiritual perception skidding off their human rails, along with every motor or sensory synapse and every biological function or process.

I’m going overboard in my description perhaps, partly because Jesus warned me about describing so much else that I wanted here to attempt this little bit of a sketch of what happens between life and deathlessness. And most of what I write I hardly know anything about.

I do know, though, that they lived and kept living, kept teaching, kept layering their ancient insights onto successive generations, none of whom had the faintest clue who they were.

They were jailed a few times, which of course was useless, since they had no pain to block their escape (even when God exploded the jails).

Someone tried to bury them alive, but they could not be smothered by mere dirt.

Three times, people shoved them into ovens. But they would not ignite or even singe.

They were thrown twice into cages with animal predators. But they just got licked a little and played games with the beasts.

With every release or escape, they went back on the road, vagrants for Jesus, not asking for handouts, just giving handups, or leaning people into rivers and lakes, baptisms spreading from their presence like holy wildfire.

Okay, Mormon here. I’m done with that narrative. I was about to write the names of those immortals. But God said don’t and it wouldn’t matter anyway because pseudonyms are always available, especially to immortals. But I can verify these men indeed live, because we’ve met and discussed their situation. And they can tell anyone who they are, by the way, whenever they want. Just be careful, because they have no badge to verify their identity and one never knows what charlatans might pose as immortals to make a quick senine.

They’ll travel widely, helping Jews (including the so-called “lost” tribes),

Gentiles, and—why parse nationalities?—anyone anywhere who wants to hear about Jesus, preaching about whom was the Immortals’ last request. They will convert people probably better than angels would, since they will have walked more than their fair share of other men’s shoes.

“Get ready for the judgment day” will be their mission statement and they’ll have multimedia displays of miraculous energy to back up their message. There really is no handbook to describe or assess the feats these men or their mentor, Jesus, will perform.

But that shouldn’t be a reason to ignore them. Push back now and God will push back later, i.e., when you die. And if God doesn’t want you, you know who will.

If you got to that point it really would have been better never to have been born. God flies into rages when people try to trample him like a weed patch.

But back to the Immortals: I really don’t know if they’re immortal per se. I do know—again, God told me this much— that they still have to have their bodies changed before they can go to heaven. It’s like resurrection but they never died, so what do you call it? But they won’t taste that icky, smelly scent of death like the rest of us have to.

They also receive a free exemption card that gets them out of temptations. Wouldn’t we all like one of those?

So they get to stay this way as long as they want, until it’s time to roll the world up and throw it like a used carpet into God’s haul-away trailer.