When Ammon discovers that Lamoni needs to understand the very basics, he begins with establishing a commonality. He certainly knows that Lamoni believes in a Great Spirit. Lamoni had asked if Ammon were that Great Spirit. Therefore, Ammon begins with Lamoni’s current understanding. He uses Lamoni’s understanding of the Great Spirit to begin teaching about Jehovah. In verse 28, Ammon states that the Great Spirit is Jehovah. While that might not have been technically correct, it was a starting point where King Lamoni could understand the importance of Jehovah relevant to other possible divine beings. Lamoni believed that the Great Spirit was over all other deities or semidivine beings. Ammon places Jehovah in that same exalted and important position.
The next task is to define the relationship of humankind to Jehovah. This continues with the relationship of God to creation. Ammon asks if Lamoni believes that the Great Spirit, or Jehovah, created the heavens and the earth. Lamoni’s reply is interesting. His understanding of the Great Spirit included the creation of things on the earth, but he declares that he is unaware of the heavens. That statement is also interesting in that most cultures’ origin stories create the earth, the world below, and the world above. Thus, it is possible that we have a translation issue again, where the word that Ammon used was different from whatever word Lamoni would have used to describe the heavens in his own belief system.
Ammon had to define heaven, and defines it as the place where Jehovah dwells. The addition of “all his holy angels” is probably added to give a comparable place to other divine beings that Lamoni might believe existed.