5. Stay Thankful: Thanksgiving Special - Gerry Mahn

It was a last minute decision for me to record and release this special Thanksgiving episode. I am so grateful for all the people who are choosing to listen to The Simply Overcoming Podcast. I really enjoyed recording this short episode and it made me re-assess my own outlook of gratitude in my own life. A special thank you to Gerry Mahn for coming by and sharing some thoughts on gratitude and talking about the non-profit Religious organization that he has founded.

Hey, everyone, it's the Simply Overcoming Podcast. This is Aaron written hour and today is Thanksgiving Day, and this is our Thanksgiving special. I wanted to put out a special episode on Thanksgiving because overall, this podcast is about overcoming and being thankful and having gratitude in your life. And so I felt like it was very appropriate to be putting out an episode today on the Simply Overcoming Podcast. Thanksgiving is a time to look at your life and see what things in your life you can be thankful for now. I recommend doing this on a daily basis, looking at the things in your life that you can be thankful for. Now today, I have a guest. His name is Gerryman. Jerry is somebody that I've known for a few years now. I have done video work for him for his organization. I have helped them in managing their social media, and Jerry is the founder of Law by Choice for Freedom. Now. Law by Choice for Freedom is an organization that is reaching the world through the law of God. From Exodus 20 in the Bible, Jerry has traveled around the world and met with presidents and national leaders to discuss and present the Ten Commandments to them. Jerry has met with many different leaders. He's met with the President of Nicaragua twice. He's in contact with them all the time. So Jerry has had a very unique opportunity to be able to reach dignitaries and leaders around the world. Jerry is a very religious man. He loves the Lord, he loves his country. And so Jerry, would you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do? My name is Jerry Mon. We have an organization called Law by Choice for Freedom, which is endeavoring to take a copy of the Ten Commandments, the full version as they appear in the Bible with nothing added or taken away. The goal is everyone in the world has a right to have in their possession if they would like to have one that which God wrote with his own finger for all mankind. And we know that this is what all of us are to be judged by. This is the character of God. This is what he wrote and this is what Jesus lived. He's the word become flesh. So, Jerry, you have a lot of life experience. You've been through many Thanksgivings, and so I just want to ask you, what does Thanksgiving. What does gratitude mean to you? Personally? I would say that I'm just so thankful for everything now, everything that we have thankful for life itself, that I get to make the choices that I want. I have a freedom. I don't serve a God who's a dictator who says you've got to submit to me blindly or I will punish you right now. Here and there, he offers out a choice to either accept him and follow his ways or not to accept him. I'm thankful for Jesus Christ to be the savior of mankind and for our country, a great country based on laws that were formed as the founders got together and they prayed and searched. And I believe God led in the establishment of this nation. And it has been a blessed nation. And I am thankful for America and all that it has stood for. No country is perfect. No people are perfect. It is the best that the world was able to produce by people that were honestly trying to do the best. And that's why America. I just feel like it's been a blessed country. And I look forward to Thanksgiving. It is just a time when we can be together with families, enjoy our freedoms, enjoy one another and contemplate what we have as a country. You know, one thought, Aaron, I'm going to share this when I was a kid. I remember laying on the lawn looking at the sky and I thought, how fortunate. And I wasn't a Christian then and my folks didn't go to Church hardly ever. I went with the neighbors for a short time, but I remember laying there on the lawn and thanking God. I was born in America. I heard the stories of the little children in Africa, starving in India and other parts of the world didn't have enough to eat. And I remember thanking God for being able to be born here in America where I had plenty of food to eat. I don't know. I maybe what five or six, seven years old. I don't remember how old I was, but I was so thankful to be born. And I feel like we have a responsibility. We've got these great blessings. And I know so many. I read these heartwarming stories of people that want to help others and they give their lives to send food. I just went to a thing that a lady started in Memorial of her son who was killed over in I believe it was Iraq. And she started a store at the State Line area. Newbies it is, and they are free for all veterans who come in and receive goods and help. And she did it in memory of her son to help people. This is what she wanted the memory of her son to establish. I want to help people provide people with things they can't afford. That's Thanksgiving. That's America. I'm so thankful to spend this day in Thanksgiving here at the Simply Overcoming Podcast. Our goal is to share stories about other experiences in life and hopefully motivate and inspire others through their stories. I'm a big advocate for sharing your own testimony. You can help others by sharing your story. It can also be a benefit for yourself to share your story with others. So I'm just curious, what is your thoughts on testimony and how important do you think it is to share your own testimony, your own story with others? Well, I think it's important for all of us. We all have a story. I worked with a lady. Her name was Mei Chung, and she wrote a little book. It was called My Story, and she handed it out. But I remember one printing was 10,000. She handed it out everywhere we went. We went to other countries. We were in Spain and Uruguay and Panama. I don't know. I could list all the countries and may always have a book with her story. And she told all of us, you need to write your story. You need to put it on paper and share it with people because the Bible says they are one to God by the word of your testimony. And I can say that my testimony would be that I was a lost man. I was on a course, really of destruction. And there was darkness in my life. And when I found about Christ and really understood, it was like a bright light went on. My eyes were opened to a whole new understanding of life, and it gave me such peace. There was a time soon after that when I began to get away from reading the Bible and studying. And I was riding on my motorcycle one day and I had a panic attack and I saw darkness coming back into my life, a darkness that was foreboding. And it so grabbed me. When I got home, I told my wife, I said, you call that pastor and ask him to come to the house. And I bowed on my knees and gave my heart to Jesus Christ. So that's my testimony. And I love His Law of Liberty. The Ten Commandments. I know in the beginning you briefly talked about your organization, law by choice, for freedom. But would you talk a little more about what your role is with the organization and some of the things that you have done, how it's impacted your life? Aaron, that's a great question. I'll start by saying that I read an article years ago about a doctor Cox. He had done a study of 50,000 young people that had been in trouble with the law. They were 16 years old and younger, and he asked them a question. And he said, how many of you have heard of the Ten Commandments? And out of 55,000, only 9000 had ever heard of the Ten Commandments? And so then he went to a public high school and out of 1000, 1000 hundred students, only 400. And some could write anything at all about the Ten Commandments, even a word or two. So the ignorance was profound out there in a country that professed to be over 90% believers in God that so few young people had an idea of what the Ten Commandments were. So when I read that I realized the power that God's word has, he wrote it with his own finger. Jesus is the embodiment or the personification of that word. In fact, the Bible says He's the word to become flesh. That's who he is. He is the flesh and blood of the Ten Commandments. Total righteousness. I just had to take it to people. It's so beautiful and so powerful. And so we began to print them. And I went door to door and so many people wanted the full version of the Commandments. I was shocked. I had people running down the street after me to get a copy. And then I decided, Well, I've got to take them to Russia because the wall came down. This was in the early 90s. The Wall Berlin Wall came down. Russia was opening up and we went to Russia. I won't get into all the details. But we were able to go to Russia and meet with the leaders in St. Petersburg and Moscow and present the Ten Commandments to them. And when they were presented in St. Petersburg, where that Communist revolution began, there was a Godless revolution against God and persecuted those who believed in God. And when the leaders there took those Ten Commandments and hung them on their conference wall. And they told me, this will be the only thing hanging on our walls now that Communism is gone. The law of God. I remember in Africa visiting one of the worst dictators or beyond the Guma in Equatorial Guinea and we carried the Ten Commandments. Nobody would take us even to the palace. They refused to drive us there. We had to carry the frame Ten Commandments in front of us and hold it so I could carry it. It was hard to carry unless I kept it in front of me. We got to the palace. It took us about 5 hours. We visited with President Obey on. He was so glad we came. He said, I've never heard these things. I told about the blood of Jesus in the First Commandment, and he put it on his wall. And as we left, he asked us to pray for him. And it was so exciting that he opened up his country. We went on national television in his country. The moderator read every one of the Ten Commandments to all of the people that were tuned into their TV in Equatorial Guinea. God has allowed us to do this in many countries, all over the world. Jerry, thank you for being on the episode today. I know that it's a very short Thanksgiving episode until next time. Happy Thanksgiving, Jerry. And we'll see you again soon. You have a good Thanksgiving too, and all your listeners. Well, I want to make a couple of calls while we're doing this episode really quick. I wanted to give Nick a call and have a conversation with him about what he's thankful for. So let's ring him up right now, brother. What's up? Good morning, sir. How are you? I am absolutely amazing. Happy Thanksgiving. You also. What are you doing today? I am going out to my grandparents house in Sandpoint. Well, hey, Nick, we're actually live on a podcast right now with Gerryman. I wanted to give you a call. You are a part of the podcast, and I know you're not here right now, but just wanted to hear your thoughts on Thanksgiving and gratitude. What Thanksgiving means to you in your life. Would you mind talking about that for a couple of minutes? Yeah, sure. Wow. Thanksgiving is important to be thankful. This world is not very thankful in all honesty. I mean, we're flipping out about different things that are not drawing us together. You need to be thankful to improve anything like you need to be thankful for the little things. For instance, you need to be thankful for the breath of your breathing. There was a point in time that I didn't have that I was on a machine. You need to be thankful for walking because I can't walk really anymore. I mean, I can, but it's taken me a long time to get back up to this point and I still walk in and can. So just small things. It's just like, Dang, you totally take it for granted. I'm thankful for the cars that I get to drive, hoping that they will not take my life away because I have wrecked enough. Well, hey, Nick, I appreciate your brother and I am thankful for you and our friendship. Happy Thanksgiving. And I'll talk to you again soon. All right. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right. Have a good day. Bye bye. All right. While I was on the phone with Nick, somebody that I do work for just gave me a call and I am going to call him back and we're going to have a conversation with him. Aaron, I was just leaving you a voicemail. Paul, how are you, sir? Good. I was calling to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I appreciate it, Paul. I was going to do the same. What are you doing today? Are you working? No, I'm off currently out for a walk. I've got a New Year's resolution. I'm starting early 20,000 steps a day period. No questions asked, will not go to bed until it's done. Good deal. Five days into that program. That is awesome. That's fantastic. You know me. I love walking around. I've hit about 100 miles this month so far. You're unbelievable. I probably will never attain your but then you got a few years on me too. That helps. That does help the situation. Hey, so I'm live on a podcast right now and I was wondering if you would mind sharing with the podcast what thankfulness and gratitude means to you and your life. Would you mind doing that? No, not a bit. That's awesome, man. Thank you. When I think about gratitude and I think about thankfulness, it's indistinguishable from happiness. I was just listening to an audiobook this past week and the author talked about just taking a couple of minutes every morning as soon as he wakes up between the time his alarm goes off and his snooze goes off, which is eight minutes on an iphone. He spends that eight minutes thinking about all the things that he's grateful for in his life right now, and that helps him to be happy throughout the day and in his life. I think it's not just a one day thing. I think it's an everyday thing. So true, Paul. Well, I know that in my life I could be more thankful. So I think it's something we all can work on and be a lot better at absolutely. Happy Thanksgiving. Erin. Thanks, Paul. Happy Thanksgiving to you. Have a good day. Bye bye. Bye. Bye. Now I'm kind of feeling like I should give Danny a call and see what Danny is thankful for in her life. Let's see if she'll answer. We're getting some wisdom today. That Thanksgiving wisdom. Oh, I don't know. She may not be answering. Hi, this is Daniel Granier from Richard Partners in Dallas, Texas. And if you want to leave me a message, I'll be sure to return your call. Bye. Hey, Danny, it's Erin writtenauer. You're live on the Simply Overcoming podcast. I was just giving you a call to wish you a happy Thanksgiving and ask you what Thanksgiving and gratitude means to you, but I guess we'll catch you later. Bye bye. Well, Danny wasn't going to be answering. I think we're going to call it good. I'm going to go spend some time with the family. I'm actually recording this on Thanksgiving. So anyway, Thanksgiving and gratitude to myself because I'm asking all of these people, I should probably answer as well. I'm so thankful for my family. I'm thankful for the few friends that I have in my life that are so important to me. I'm thankful for Nick. I really am thankful for my wife. She's such an amazing partner in life, and she continues to stand by me and accept me even when I'm struggling in life. She continues to stand next to me and to support me. And that really means a lot. So it really helps to have somebody in your corner. Having gratitude in my life helps my mental health immensely. And so I would just encourage people who like myself struggle with mental health to have that gratitude and to look at the things in their life that they can be grateful for. Everybody has something in their life that they can be grateful for. Is it family? Is it friends? Is it that car that you can drive to work in? Is it even having a job? Everybody needs to reassess their lives and on a daily basis, like Paul was saying and think about what they are grateful for in their life. So I encourage everybody to do that. Thank you for joining us for this episode. Whether you're listening to this on Thanksgiving, which I highly doubt or you're listening to this at another point in your life to wish you a happy Thanksgiving and a great future for yourself. All right. Happy Thanksgiving. And we will catch you on the next one. Have a good day. Bye bye.