Next Sunday ends our service as Inner City Missionaries. Tonight we got to attend an event which, though only peripherally involved, gives us great satisfaction.
Last year as we began our mission, we learned that a family was seeking help as a sub for Santa. Mandie's ward was their sub. Someone told me that the parents were not members but they attended church as a family regularly. The story is thus: the mother had been previously married in Mexico. She had two children in that marriage. They are now teenagers. She was living with the father of her youngest child but they were not married because she was not divorced from her first husband so they could not be baptized.
The father also has an interesting history. He grew up in California and had been involved in gangs and has served time in prison for his activities. He has a kind of hooded eye look that makes you think of a stereotypical gang member in the movies but he is actually very nice. After meeting his future wife, he decided he didn't want that life for her kids (and eventually their kids), so they came to Utah about five years ago.
The wife had a sister who was a member of the church. She was dying. The wife promised to take her three kids and raise them as her own. The sister asked her to promise to take her kids to church. She did and she became converted over the years. Her own children were baptized and a year ago, her partner began attending church. He also become converted. Enter some senior missionaries who ended their service before we began. They got some legal help for the family and the divorce became possible.
Tonight, they were married and then they were baptized. It was wonderful to see this happen.
