Many moons ago my husband served a mission in Canada. He touched the lives of many families and there is one that has always been close to both of our hearts. The Wareham's are like any normal North American family, a mom, a dad, and kids in the house. What's special about this family is that the kids in the house all of different monthers and fathers, they are all adopted. At the time Jeremy taught the Wareham's it was just mom, dad, Lacey, and Tayler. They have since added on TJ and Ashton. Jeremy often shares the story about Lacey and her conversion. She was pretty young, about 9 or 10, and she would teach the discussions to them. She has always had a special place in Jeremy's heart, as she does mine. When she was 21 she went on a mission at Temple Square (we even surprised her on a visit), but also found out that depression was a lot harder to deal with, so she went home early. I'm not quite sure how the rest of the story goes, but somewhere between then and now she got pregnant twice, stopped going to church, got engaged, and is pregnant now. I recently chatted with Lacey on Facebook to find out that she had stopped going to church years ago when she got pregnant with her eldest son. She explained to me that people were not so kind to her because of her choices, so she decided that she didn't want to go back. This BROKE MY HEART!! As I spent the rest of the evening contemplating her actions, I thought to myself 'How could they do that to her?' This lovely girl, with such a loving heart, how could they treat her so cruely? I just cried tears of sadness for Lacey and her children. Why do people do that? Why not accept the fact that a mistake was made, and keep moving forward and showing that person they will not be abandoned, that they are loved always. So my tears of sadness were for her.
I can also write of tears of joy. I've been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for almost 19 years. I joined the church my senior year of high school and I haven't looked back ever since. My family have investigated the church, but are not interested right now. So for the last 19 years, I've been the only member of my family, until the information I received this weekend. This past year we held a family reunion in Las Vegas. During the reunion I met a cousin that I have never met before. My cousin Tiffany is 18 and for years we didn't even know she existed. She lived in the Philippines with her mom, then to Florida, then to California. She is the daughter of my uncle, and he didn't tell us that he had a daughter. Anyway, this past reunion my cousin Rocky, her half-brother, brought her to the reunion for all of us to meet her finally. She is the sweetest young lady, beautiful, smart, and so nice. I've been in contact with her since the reunion through Facebook. The other day she wrote, "Was at the Temple". The first thing that ran through my mind was WHAT? What Temple? Is she LDS? So I messaged her and asked if she was. And indeed she is! She had no idea that we were LDS either. It was so exciting to know that I have another family member in the same church. For some it may not seem that exciting, but for me, how could I not shed tears of joy!
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