Converts: when did you start discussing becoming Catholic?

[seafoamgreen]

Hi all,
Just joined the forum this evening and thought I’d tell my story if it helps. I was atheist my entire life, then my last semester of undergrad, I took a major religions of the world class. One of our assignments was to attend five different services of five completely different religions and write papers on our experiences. Long story short, my one hour long experience in that Catholic service was life-changing and when I went away to grad school, I began RCIA and was just baptised and confirmed this Easter actually. My family are neutral about religion and took it fine for the most part. But some of my close friends are atheists with advanced philosophy degrees in logic - people who are hard to argue with and win! I ran into an old professor while I was home (at church) and told him my quandry. He said just start with the kindest friends first and let the Holy Spirit guide you from there. So about half my friends know now and they took it much better than I thought they would. Now I’m just working up the courage to tell the other half - pray for me!
(P.S. - sorry for the long post, but I wanted it to make sense)

 

[jmcrae]

Hi all,
Just joined the forum this evening and thought I’d tell my story if it helps. I was atheist my entire life, then my last semester of undergrad, I took a major religions of the world class. One of our assignments was to attend five different services of five completely different religions and write papers on our experiences. Long story short, my one hour long experience in that Catholic service was life-changing and when I went away to grad school, I began RCIA and was just baptised and confirmed this Easter actually. My family are neutral about religion and took it fine for the most part. But some of my close friends are atheists with advanced philosophy degrees in logic - people who are hard to argue with and win! I ran into an old professor while I was home (at church) and told him my quandry. He said just start with the kindest friends first and let the Holy Spirit guide you from there. So about half my friends know now and they took it much better than I thought they would. Now I’m just working up the courage to tell the other half - pray for me!
(P.S. - sorry for the long post, but I wanted it to make sense)

Wow, that’s amazing!! Welcome home!! :extrahappy:

 

[seafoamgreen]

thanks jmcrae!

 

[john_portis]

Just let the sprit guide you and one by one the right time and place will come and if you really belive in what you have done it gets easier with each person and I know some you dread the discussion ,My reason for conversion is I have studied church history and read the New Testament at least five times and after going to mass a few I times I came to conculson this is orginal Cristian Faith and all others are break offs in some form or other.Good luck and GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS

 

[JohnnyReb]

It happened when my aunt came to town who is Catholic. I went with her to mass to observe. I really wanted to check out the Catholic church but was not ready to tell anyone yet. I was so impressed with how Christ is worshipped and is the center of the mass. I had started to watch EWTN out of some kind of curiousity, really to see “how full of ****” the Catholic church was. What I found was a church that made the most sense to me and resonated with me spiritually.

One day, several weeks after having gone to mass for the first time, I still had not found a church, so I went back, and starting going on a regular basis. Shortly thereafter, my mom just asked me out of the blue, “Are you thinking about converting to Catholicism?” I guess I was, so I said yes. She gave me her blessing. Shortly thereafter, I inquired about RCIA and joined the church in March 2008.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

That’s really sweet, Light Seeker. I had hoped to do it that way - surprise my boyfriend by having investigated the faith and joined it on my own - but I ended up telling him when he was feeling blue and dejected. I told him that I prayed a rosary for him everyday. It sure did cheer him up - and shock him!

I can only imagine! To hear from one’s girlfriend that she is becoming Catholic . . . wow, I can hardly imagine the blessing that would be!

The reason I’m not telling everyone is that I don’t want to be blasted for embracing my boyfriend’s faith. I don’t want people to think I did it for him. I don’t want him to think that I did it just to please him. That’s one of the reasons we don’t even go to the same Mass (that, and that my Mass is at 9am in English, and his is at 1:30pm in Tagalog, and he works until 8am Sunday morning). I want to explore the faith on my own, and be certain that it’s for me without letting my feelings for my boyfriend enter into it.

Very understandable.

I do think it’s all right to allow your feelings for your boyfriend to be partly involved, though. It’s very natural, if one has feelings for another person, to investigate carefully that person’s faith to find out if it’s true. That’s what led the great apologist Lee Strobel to the faith, and others. In the Scripture, for instance, Ruth said to Naomi, “let your people be my people and your God my God.” Love for a person led Ruth to relationship with Naomi’s God. I’ve heard other stories also about how people’s love for God causes those they know to investigate that faith more carefully and thus to come into deeper relationships with God. Their relationships with the human beings led them to relationship with God in the first place, but once that relationship with God had come to exist, it was their foundation all their lives.

So if your love for your boyfriend led you to take his faith more seriously than you might otherwise have, that’s very valid. I think it’s clear (to us reading this thread, anyway), that you aren’t converting only because it’s your boyfriend’s faith. You are taking it extremely seriously and personally.

Praise God for the way he is leading your heart!

So far I’ve attended Mass four times on my own, and this weekend I’m going to talk to the priest after Mass. I can hardly wait for Sunday - I’m so excited! One of the nice ladies at Mass was very helpful in giving me advice about talking to the priest and getting a spiritual director. I didn’t even know the priest’s name before I spoke to her. He only leads one Mass per week at this Cathedral. I don’t know where he is the other days of the week. According to the bulletin, preparation for baptism is only given in Korean, not English, but since I’m already baptised surely they can help me.

It’s such a blessing to read about how God is leading you in this! It’s so, SO beautiful how God has developed levels of romance in your life on TWO fronts at once! Both with your boyfriend and with his Church at the SAME TIME! Wow. Your love for both is just oozing from your voice! It’s lovely to hear. God is just wrapping his arms of love around you . . .

I’m just curious to know when other converts started telling people about their journey toward Catholicism . . . I don’t want to bring it up to my non-religious friends because I don’t know enough about the Faith to defend it yet. And I haven’t spoken to my religious friends about it because I was quite vocal about not having a religion.

Being homeschooled, and still living at home as college is so nearby, my primary audience is my Protestant family. I’ve always been extremely open with them. Unfortunately, my coming to Catholicism has strained relations pretty badly, and has resulted in some nasty arguments.

I’ve learned through long experience debating with non-Christians not to open my mouth to non-believers if I’m not prepared to defend. So as I came to understand and accept each doctrine, and to grasp fully the arguments supporting it, I became freer about telling my family my views. I only voiced my opinion about each doctrine after it was pretty much impossible for them to rebut what I had to say (I have many years of debating experience, so that helps also). On doctrines where I didn’t know enough to defend them, I didn’t talk about them until I did. I only talked about what I knew about as I came to know about it. My family knew which way I was going long before I told them I was planning to join the RCIA.

Nobody else knows, except my CAF friends and some people in my online courses who haven’t met me in real life. A couple of my real life friends are very vocally anti-Christian and anti-Catholic specifically. I still don’t know when or how I’ll tell them.

That will be very hard. It is a way of telling God that you love him, though. That is what I’ve done whenever having a hard conversation with my family about my decision- I’ve told God privately that I’m doing it for him and that this is my way of showing him that I love him. Praise be to God that you’re willing to stand for what’s true, rather than allowing the culture that surrounds you to dominate you.

 

[Strevel]

I’m just curious to know when other converts started telling people about their journey toward Catholicism. So far I haven’t told anybody in real life - I haven’t even told my boyfriend the extent to which I’m thinking about it. I’m finding it really difficult to talk about. I don’t want to bring it up to my non-religious friends because I don’t know enough about the Faith to defend it yet. And I haven’t spoken to my religious friends about it because I was quite vocal about not having a religion.

I did tell my boyfriend today that I bought a rosary. He was very pleased! I don’t know why I was embarrassed to tell him - I was a little worried that he’d think I was converting only for him, not for the right reasons. Nobody else knows, except my CAF friends and some people in my online courses who haven’t met me in real life. A couple of my real life friends are very vocally anti-Christian and anti-Catholic specifically. I still don’t know when or how I’ll tell them.

Did you tell people that you were converting? At what point in the conversion process did you start talking about it? How did you bring it up?

I was a Mormon Missioonary, and my conversion actually started on my Mission. I know of several other Missionaries that have since left the Mormon Church to join (return to) the Mormon Church.

Don in Vegas

 

[Just_wondering]

I can only imagine! To hear from one’s girlfriend that she is becoming Catholic . . . wow, I can hardly imagine the blessing that would be!

Yes, he was pretty surprised, and pleased.

I do think it’s all right to allow your feelings for your boyfriend to be partly involved, though. It’s very natural, if one has feelings for another person, to investigate carefully that person’s faith to find out if it’s true. That’s what led the great apologist Lee Strobel to the faith, and others. In the Scripture, for instance, Ruth said to Naomi, “let your people be my people and your God my God.” Love for a person led Ruth to relationship with Naomi’s God. I’ve heard other stories also about how people’s love for God causes those they know to investigate that faith more carefully and thus to come into deeper relationships with God. Their relationships with the human beings led them to relationship with God in the first place, but once that relationship with God had come to exist, it was their foundation all their lives.

So if your love for your boyfriend led you to take his faith more seriously than you might otherwise have, that’s very valid. I think it’s clear (to us reading this thread, anyway), that you aren’t converting only because it’s your boyfriend’s faith. You are taking it extremely seriously and personally.

Praise God for the way he is leading your heart!

I’m glad to have your reassurance. It’s tough to separate my feelings for the Church from my feelings for my boyfriend. After all, if I hadn’t met him and we hadn’t discussed raising our children Catholic, I’d never have gone to church. Although God must have been working on me behind the scenes, because before I met my boyfriend, I stated that I’d never date a religious man. However, with my boyfriend, I knew that his being religious was a good thing - I had no (well, very few) doubts about it.

I got up the courage to ask him to take me to his church on Sunday. (He asked me before, and I said no because I didn’t want to be the only non-Tagalog speaker there. I regretted that, but he never invited me again.) We’re planning to go to Church together next week. Even though I won’t understand the homily, it’ll be nice to have him there so I can figure out all those small details that I would learn in RCIA if it were available.

It’s such a blessing to read about how God is leading you in this! It’s so, SO beautiful how God has developed levels of romance in your life on TWO fronts at once! Both with your boyfriend and with his Church at the SAME TIME! Wow. Your love for both is just oozing from your voice! It’s lovely to hear. God is just wrapping his arms of love around you . . .

Aww, thanks for that. That’s exactly the image I picture for myself when I’m worried - God (or Jesus, or Mary) holding me in loving arms and comforting me. Sometimes when I’m praying for someone in trouble, I envision them being held and rocked like a baby by our Lord. It’s a nice image.

I’m at a really exciting time in my life. I feel as if everything is coming together (even as it sometimes seems like it’s falling apart). This is going to be a long journey for me, but so worth it!

 

[LizzieM]

I don’t start RCIA until the end of August but I told my mom (and dad soon after) about a month and a half ago. I thought she was going to flip. In retrospect, I don’t know why. We went to a Baptist Church when I was younger. Lately she has been attending various churches. She told me that she was glad I was going to Church and that she always find Catholic churches very pretty.

I told my two best friends soon after that.

My boyfriend has known for a while now. He is Catholic but doesn’t really attend Mass like he should. The last time he went was Easter.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

I’m just curious to know when other converts started telling people about their journey toward Catholicism. So far I haven’t told anybody in real life - I haven’t even told my boyfriend the extent to which I’m thinking about it. I’m finding it really difficult to talk about. I don’t want to bring it up to my non-religious friends because I don’t know enough about the Faith to defend it yet. And I haven’t spoken to my religious friends about it because I was quite vocal about not having a religion.

I did tell my boyfriend today that I bought a rosary. He was very pleased! I don’t know why I was embarrassed to tell him - I was a little worried that he’d think I was converting only for him, not for the right reasons. Nobody else knows, except my CAF friends and some people in my online courses who haven’t met me in real life. A couple of my real life friends are very vocally anti-Christian and anti-Catholic specifically. I still don’t know when or how I’ll tell them.

Did you tell people that you were converting? At what point in the conversion process did you start talking about it? How did you bring it up?

Pretty soon, I think. I may have waited until after the Big Night, because believe it or not, I was scared I wouldn’t ‘pass muster.’

 

[rpp]

Well, I did not want to tell my (then) wife. We were both atheists and were both rather anti-Christian. My wife was particularly anti-Catholic.

Then I had my conversion experience while I was out of town. My conversion was sudden and miraculous; literally from one moment to the next.

I was afraid to mention anything about this to my wife for fear of her reaction. Turns out I was right to be concerned.

I got up earlier than normal on Sunday morning and got dressed to go to Mass for the very first time. As I was walking out the of bedroom, hoping I did not wake her, she sat up and asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to church. Her jaw dropped and she just stared at me.

Without going into the rather funny details, I ended up attending 3 Masses back to back so I was gone for several hours.

By the time I got home, my wife had move all my belongings, clothes, shaving kit, everything, into the spare bedroom. Once she confirmed that I had indeed gone to church, she refused to speak to me. That was in October of 2003.

We lived together in the same house but hardly ever saw each other and spoke only very rarely. The recurring theme to these one sentence conversations was “Are you still going to Church?” The conversation always ended as soon as I said “Yes”.

We had our next conversation in December of 2005 when she announced that I had to choose between divorce and going to Church. I told her I could never stop going to Church. She replied that she would divorce me and that she “could not stand to breath the same air as a Christian.”

Two weeks later she fled the country and divorced me from overseas.

I received a decree of nullity in April this year.

So yeah, I was a little concerned about telling my wife I had converted.

 

[anon52328184]

i began studying about the Catholic church 10 years ago. my father’s family was Catholic, but he married a Lutheran and i was raised in the Episcopal church. i wasn’t clear on the differences between the Episcopal church and the Catholic church. anyhow,
because the Episcopal church and the Church of England are in kind of a mess right now, i decided it was time to convert and have a stable church home. so i was confirmed about 10 days ago. so far so good. it is still sinking in. surprisingly, the one thing that i thought i would rebel against the most, i really like - which is the Pope. i have much more confidence in him protecting the teachings of the Catholic church than the archbishop of Canterbury holding together the anglican communion.

 

[strngrnrth]

Well, I did not want to tell my (then) wife. We were both atheists and were both rather anti-Christian. My wife was particularly anti-Catholic.
…I got up earlier than normal on Sunday morning and got dressed to go to Mass for the very first time. As I was walking out the of bedroom, hoping I did not wake her, she sat up and asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to church. Her jaw dropped and she just stared at me.
…By the time I got home, my wife had move all my belongings, clothes, shaving kit, everything, into the spare bedroom. Once she confirmed that I had indeed gone to church, she refused to speak to me. That was in October of 2003.

We lived together in the same house but hardly ever saw each other and spoke only very rarely. The recurring theme to these one sentence conversations was “Are you still going to Church?” The conversation always ended as soon as I said “Yes”.

We had our next conversation in December of 2005 when she announced that I had to choose between divorce and going to Church. I told her I could never stop going to Church. She replied that she would divorce me and that she “could not stand to breath the same air as a Christian.”

Two weeks later she fled the country and divorced me from overseas.

I received a decree of nullity in April this year.

Yeah, you’re in the PNW.
People look sadly at me when I pass on the street ever since the word got out. People I hardly know come up all sad and start rambling about copycat stories the “terrible history” of christianity and how the Christians “stole all their ideas” from the pagans even though the “pagans were peaceful and equal” and “the Christians destroyed all these indigenous cultures” and so on and so on. When I try to get a word in edgewise some shriek, “listen to me!” and rave so frantically that there is nothing intelligible to listen to. I try to explain that I know their arguments, used to rattle them off myself and would love to calm down, speak intelligibly and refute them one by one to these folk, but only a few have allowed me time even to state my intent to do so, never mind time to do so. Of course they call themselves the defenders of “rational” conversation, no matter what lengths they go to to avoid actual reasoning aloud with an opponent. And of course they love to say their problem with the survival of Christianity is that it’s a religion of “intolerance and hatred”, regardless of who is persecuting whom in the world and regardless of who is praying for and working to feed and clothe the families of their own persecutors, century after century, around the world. Yeah, we’ve made mistakes. But most have been ripped out of context, wildly exaggerated, and still don’t touch the amount of good Christians have done, and what we’ve collectively endured. So finally it keeps coming down to two real objections: Christianity considers truth and falsehood to be two different things, and forbids some actions that some people think they need.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

Well, I did not want to tell my (then) wife. We were both atheists and were both rather anti-Christian. My wife was particularly anti-Catholic.

Then I had my conversion experience while I was out of town. My conversion was sudden and miraculous; literally from one moment to the next.

I was afraid to mention anything about this to my wife for fear of her reaction. Turns out I was right to be concerned.

I got up earlier than normal on Sunday morning and got dressed to go to Mass for the very first time. As I was walking out the of bedroom, hoping I did not wake her, she sat up and asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to church. Her jaw dropped and she just stared at me.

Without going into the rather funny details, I ended up attending 3 Masses back to back so I was gone for several hours.

By the time I got home, my wife had move all my belongings, clothes, shaving kit, everything, into the spare bedroom. Once she confirmed that I had indeed gone to church, she refused to speak to me. That was in October of 2003.

We lived together in the same house but hardly ever saw each other and spoke only very rarely. The recurring theme to these one sentence conversations was “Are you still going to Church?” The conversation always ended as soon as I said “Yes”.

We had our next conversation in December of 2005 when she announced that I had to choose between divorce and going to Church. I told her I could never stop going to Church. She replied that she would divorce me and that she “could not stand to breath the same air as a Christian.”

Two weeks later she fled the country and divorced me from overseas.

I received a decree of nullity in April this year.

So yeah, I was a little concerned about telling my wife I had converted.

:crying:

I’m sorry this happened to you. We converted together. Thank God for that.

 

[tapiocapudding]

My DH has known for a while that I was considering converting. Now he knows I am planning on it. He is thankfully very supportive. I also told my sister who is supportive. My parents are going to have a fit! My Dad was baptized a Catholic but had a very bad experience in Catholic school. He is left handed but the nuns tied his hand down and made him write with his right (now he’s still left handed but his writing is terrible!) he was also beaten with a ruler. So he doesn’t really like the Catholic church much. My Mom says she’s still a Christian but doesn’t really believe in Jesus . My grandfather is an Anglican minister (though not much of one! He cheated on his wife and remarried to a woman he was giving marriage councelling to!) the rest of my extended family are not very religious at all.
I probably won’t tell my friends unless they ask as most are not religious or not Christian. My DH’s friends in particular will not be very supportive!
I need to ask my Mom to babysit on RCIA nights but I’m not sure how to bring it up…

 

[Strevel]

Yeah, you’re in the PNW.
People look sadly at me when I pass on the street ever since the word got out. People I hardly know come up all sad and start rambling about copycat stories the “terrible history” of christianity and how the Christians “stole all their ideas” from the pagans even though the “pagans were peaceful and equal” and “the Christians destroyed all these indigenous cultures” and so on and so on. When I try to get a word in edgewise some shriek, “listen to me!” and rave so frantically that there is nothing intelligible to listen to. I try to explain that I know their arguments, used to rattle them off myself and would love to calm down, speak intelligibly and refute them one by one to these folk, but only a few have allowed me time even to state my intent to do so, never mind time to do so. Of course they call themselves the defenders of “rational” conversation, no matter what lengths they go to to avoid actual reasoning aloud with an opponent. And of course they love to say their problem with the survival of Christianity is that it’s a religion of “intolerance and hatred”, regardless of who is persecuting whom in the world and regardless of who is praying for and working to feed and clothe the families of their own persecutors, century after century, around the world. Yeah, we’ve made mistakes. But most have been ripped out of context, wildly exaggerated, and still don’t touch the amount of good Christians have done, and what we’ve collectively endured. So finally it keeps coming down to two real objections: Christianity considers truth and falsehood to be two different things, and forbids some actions that some people think they need.

At times in life we must exchange. We exchange things that are inconsistant with mans inate nature. We must have a dream, a goal, something to have faith in…even a Church. We call it a Church when a lot of us get together and have our belief system in common. It is a good thing.

Sometimes to gain balance in our lives we need, need to exchange one thing for another. Like moving a load of bricks from a point of imbalance on a barge, to a point of balance. We give up people and things that we have very little to nothing in common with to things that we have more in common with. This is normal and acceptable. Attend Church functions, etc… with your new friends. Understand that growth takes stretching reaching and being more and better. Those behind you played their part in this action as well. Sometimes you have to agree to dissagree.

I gave up friends, social relationships, business, etc… to become Catholic as well. People that were my friends, invited me over for dinner would now sic their dog on me. So, I stopped associating in every way with the negative stimulus from the past. It was the best investment I ever made! So many have, do and will continue to do so. Don’t lament. Look towards the friends and relationships you now have and can develope more in from a more open and honest position.

I would rather be Catholic on a bad day than any other faith. Hell, we even have better archetecture(sp). We have a history that goes back to Jesus Christ himself and have his Apostles in our foundational framework. We were not founded so a person could get a divorce, or be a political leader. Plus, being Catholic just makes me happy. Two thousand years of experience says a lot.

Your brother in Christ,
Deo Patria (God and Country)
Don in Vegas

 

[Tsuwano]

My wife is a convert to Catholicism from Buddhism, but since she doesn’t write or speak English she has asked me to respnd to this question for her. She is Japanese and her family are typical Japanese, who practice a faith that is a mixture of Buddhist practices and traditional Japanese, or Shinto, worship. She was always aware of Christianity, but since she didn’t know any Christians she always viewed it as foreign and somewhat odd. Her first contact with Christianity was when she met me and I introduced her to several friends of mine, some of whom are priests. When we first attended mass together she was struck by the warmth and fellowship of the parishoners and by the simplicity of the mass itself. She eventually decided to study a class on Christianity at a local Catholic college and was inspired to seek instruction. It was around this time that she decided to become a Christian herself and asked me to introduce her to someone who could help her. It was also at this time that we decided to get married. When she finally approached her parents to tell them that she was going to become a Christian, she wasn’t at all sure how they were react. She was very surprised and pleased that they encouraged her to follow her inclination. They told her that they themselves had not taught her a faith in any formal way, so that the calling she felt must come from some other source and she should explore it. Her friends were sceptical at first, but also encouraged her to continue her search. She was baptized into the faith in 2004 and I was her sponsor. Our two children have also been baptized, the youngest a few weeks ago on July 13th.

 

[curtishouse29]

I’m just curious to know when other converts started telling people about their journey toward Catholicism. So far I haven’t told anybody in real life - I haven’t even told my boyfriend the extent to which I’m thinking about it. I’m finding it really difficult to talk about. I don’t want to bring it up to my non-religious friends because I don’t know enough about the Faith to defend it yet. And I haven’t spoken to my religious friends about it because I was quite vocal about not having a religion.

I did tell my boyfriend today that I bought a rosary. He was very pleased! I don’t know why I was embarrassed to tell him - I was a little worried that he’d think I was converting only for him, not for the right reasons. Nobody else knows, except my CAF friends and some people in my online courses who haven’t met me in real life. A couple of my real life friends are very vocally anti-Christian and anti-Catholic specifically. I still don’t know when or how I’ll tell them.

Did you tell people that you were converting? At what point in the conversion process did you start talking about it? How did you bring it up?

I told my family earlier this year. They actually were cool about it (they go to a non-denominational church) and my mom said that as long as you’re going to church, I’m happy. I don’t see em coming to Mass with me in the near future if they ever come to town but they surprised me once…why not again?

 

[BKStac]

First of all… a bit of background information. I was raised Pentecostal-Holiness by a mother who is devoutly Pentecostal-Holiness…

I first disclosed I was in the process of becoming Catholic… actually my actual words were… “I’m Catholic!” in front of my mom with two Pentecostal preachers while they were sitting at the table at my mom’s house one night after service. They began questioning me and rudely ignoring what I was saying to only run circles around what they believed and were taught as Pentecostals.

After that I disclosed it to more people and continued being bombarded by their views of the Catholic Church and all that “good stuff” that Pentecostals/Fundamentalist Protestants are good at throwing out just to make their doctrine sound good/valid.

I’m enjoying my journey… begin RCIA this fall… and cannot wait to be “Catholic in full communion with the Catholic Church.” Until then… I’m Catholic and don’t care who knows it…

 

[Strevel]

My wife is a convert to Catholicism from Buddhism, but since she doesn’t write or speak English she has asked me to respnd to this question for her. She is Japanese and her family are typical Japanese, who practice a faith that is a mixture of Buddhist practices and traditional Japanese, or Shinto, worship. She was always aware of Christianity, but since she didn’t know any Christians she always viewed it as foreign and somewhat odd. Her first contact with Christianity was when she met me and I introduced her to several friends of mine, some of whom are priests. When we first attended mass together she was struck by the warmth and fellowship of the parishoners and by the simplicity of the mass itself. She eventually decided to study a class on Christianity at a local Catholic college and was inspired to seek instruction. It was around this time that she decided to become a Christian herself and asked me to introduce her to someone who could help her. It was also at this time that we decided to get married. When she finally approached her parents to tell them that she was going to become a Christian, she wasn’t at all sure how they were react. She was very surprised and pleased that they encouraged her to follow her inclination. They told her that they themselves had not taught her a faith in any formal way, so that the calling she felt must come from some other source and she should explore it. Her friends were sceptical at first, but also encouraged her to continue her search. She was baptized into the faith in 2004 and I was her sponsor. Our two children have also been baptized, the youngest a few weeks ago on July 13th.

What a motivational story!!

Don in Vegas