So we get home from school, and the Relief Society is in our living room.
They said, "Kids your mom's in jail." We're like, "Mom's in jail?"
We couldn't process it—we needed a glass of milk or something...
My mom, she was into a lot of drugs. My mom did a lot of heroin and other different
sorts of drugs. She wanted out. She was part of a biker gang,
but two sister missionaries found my mom in San Diego, and I think that was for the first time
she felt that she mattered.
That was our point of "We're going to church."
My mom was trying to get out of this biker gang, and so she got beat
really bad.
My mom went to the bishop, and the bishop told my mom, said, "Rene, you
got to get out of here. You got to take your kids and you got to go.
She put a map of Texas and spun my brother around, and he pointed to Corpus Christi.
And so we moved from San Diego to Corpus Christi, not knowing anybody but the Church.
We were going to find ourselves homeless. We were really poor, and so my
mom, over a period of time, I'm not sure the length of it, started writing checks
to herself, forging her boss's signature.
And she stole 30—close to 30 thousand
dollars from this company over a period of time.
I think the reason she stole
that money was because she was in a hard spot. But she was also stuck between the
natural man in her, and she went back to her worldly ways for a second and then
realized, "I don't want to be like this. This isn't who I am."
I guess she came home, she wrote a letter to her boss, and then she called the cops
on herself. She turned herself in.
The judge put her on probation.
Obviously, naturally, she lost her job. And so she got another job.
So, we had a plan in our head how life should work out, and it was complete opposite.
We really wanted to be parents, and so, for 15 years we did fertility.
We had three failed adoption attempts.
I just held her in my arms, I'm like, "Babe, we're fine. We have each other.
Things will work out. I trust that the Lord has a plan for us."
I don't know what that is. It would be nice to know maybe, sometimes, but you
don't really have to, and He's got something ready for us.
The story of
Dorothy started for me one Sunday. I was called to be a Sunday School teacher, and
I was in a classroom, talking to the kids, and I hear this, "Hey!"
And Dorothy walks in the
room, and she's, like, making all this noise.
I instantly fell in love with her.
Super spunky, and we've loved her from the beginning.
So, my mom went to the judge because her probation was coming to an end,
and the judge said, "Rene, you
owe a lot of money. I want you to come back in a week, and I'll give you your
sentence." And so she came home, and it was just her and I, and she sat me down at
the kitchen table.
She said, "Dottie, I'm gonna go to jail."
She said, "I don't know what, I don't know how long." She says, "But then I can be free
of this debt."
And I said, "Okay, Mom. Don't worry about me, I'm okay."
I went to my closet that night, and I prayed. And I said, "Heavenly Father,
my mom's going to go to jail, and I don't really have anybody."
She told us, basically, her story and asked us if we would watch over Dorothy while she
was getting some things taken care of. And obviously we're like, "Yeah of course.
We'll take care of her. We love Dorothy."
We continued to pray, and I think my mom fasted again,
and she went to the judge, and the judge completely cleared my mom's records,
took everything.
She was so excited. I wish you guys could have seen her. She was just
bouncing down the hall, and she said, "Naomi, the Lord can take me now, and I
will feel like my work is done."
After my mom was cleared from her records and she
was able to go to the temple, she had a feeling. She went to the Dallas, Texas,
temple, and she had a feeling that she needed to give me away. And so she came
home, and she went back to Kurt and Naomi.
And I told Kurt, I remember on the way
home I told him, I said, "Weirdest conversation with Rene. Like, so
awesome that she got clear, but she said these words: 'It's so great to know if
something ever happened to me that you would take care of Dorothy."
Of course. It's not
even a question. It's not, I mean there was never a hesitation. And again, I just
never—I never thought anything would ever happen.
I'm like, "That's great, that's cool. Sure."
I get a phone call from one of the other young women.
And she didn't have much information, but she just said they got in a rollover
accident, and we need to get up there as soon as possible.
I instantly felt, like, a responsibility to her. Like, I
instantly felt that she was gonna be part of our family.
It was an instant bond.
She said, "I talked to Kurt, we were praying, we were thinking really
hard about it. If you want to be a part of our family, we would love that."
And what was funny was, I never worried where was I going to live, what was I
going to do. Nothing like that crossed my mind, and normally that's terrifying.
I just lost my mom, that means I'm losing my house. Everything I know is gone.
And I never felt any anxiety or fear. I just knew that I was okay.
I show up to their
house, and I didn't go to my house. I went straight to her house, which was so weird,
because I'm so sick, I had just lost my mom, I'm showing up to this couple's home,
you know, that is absolutely spotless. And I did not grow up spotless, and I
just remember feeling very, almost out of place.
We learned together a lot. We
learned. We did. It's hard getting a teenager.
And something that was
difficult was, joining Kurt and Naomi's family, I had my mother. I had my life
before, you know, and so I almost couldn't feel a bond with Naomi.
I think that
Dorothy and I being so close in age definitely had a lot
do with us fighting. It was probably more like an older sister.
I almost felt
like she was intruding. But it wasn't really intruding. She was adding to what
my mom was already giving me, and Naomi added it.
She added her strength and her
divine to my life.
Coming together, the Lord put, the Lord put two broken people,
and put us together to make us, to make us whole.
Isn't that funny how He takes
broken hearts, and He mends them with other broken hearts.
The fact that she
wanted to go on a mission was amazing, and to see her change was incredible.
She came back a different woman.
But as I was going through, I was teaching other
families the importance of being sealed together, and I wasn't sealed to anybody.
And when I got home, I asked Kurt and Naomi, I said, "You know there's a
reason we need to be sealed in this life."
She told us that she had been praying
about it, and that her mom wanted her to be sealed to us.
We always wanted
that, but we didn't want to ask. We wanted it to be her decision.
So we went to the
courthouse, and we filled out the adoption papers, and the judge looked at
us crazy like, "You're adopting a 22-year- old?"
And so they legally adopted me, and I
got sealed to them.
She completed our family, and I didn't worry about all the
failed infertility, I didn't worry about the adoption, I didn't worry about kids
anymore because we had a daughter. And it was a long wait, but it was so worth it.
I have received blessings from being sealed to Kurt and Naomi in ways that I
can't explain/ And I love my Heavenly Father for having
that plan.
It's kind of crazy. They are grandparents to my children,
and they take care of them, and they call them papa Kurt and Nona.
Being a grandma is the
best. It's the best.
We have so much fun together.
I am today, I think, even better
because I have this strength of my past, and my mom. And I have the testimony and
how to grow in the gospel because of Kurt and Naomi.
Through this experience, I
have a greater faith that the Lord knows each of us individually. And He's not
always going to make it easy, and it's not always going to just be a smooth road.
It's going to be better than you even thought. It's gonna be better than than
you could plan for yourself.
We had a plan, and it didn't happen. And
this is better.
I think God gave me this life—everything that we do is to help
others come unto Christ.
I hope that before this life I was an incredible
spirit, I hope I was.
I hope to be the best. I want to be the one that the
Savior relies on.
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