Missionary Moment!

 A few months back, the Skokos's had started teaching Talia.  She was about my age and had two kids, Jasmine, age five, and a little boy who was two.  The Skokos's met Talia because the kids dad, Kevin, was living in the ward boundaries and was also making an effort to come back to church.  They were dating at the time and trying to see if they could make it work between the two of them. The Skokos's wanted to help her feel more comfortable in the ward and have more friends, so they asked us if we could help.  It was a great missionary moment which fell into our lap.  Some time in January, Mike and I were able to go with the missionaries to join the lesson.  They asked me to teach her about tithing.  It is amazing how the Spirit can work on people and they are willing to change their lives for the gospel.  She had no hesitations paying tithing.  At this point, she had a baptism date already set for February 4th and you could tell she was ready.  She was willing to do anything the missionaries asked her to do, without any hesitations.  Crazy enough, her sister had also independently decided she was wanting to take the discussions as well and she too was going to be baptized.

On February 4th, the date had arrived to be baptized.  Mike was asked to give a talk on baptism.  He did well, as always. Talia entered the waters of baptism.  As her daughter would report in primary the next day her mom held Stephen's hand, she plugged her nose, and then came up and got in some new clothes.  Everybody laughed and thought it was so cute.  She is a funny and animated little girl.  It was a really neat experience to be a part of and we were able to make some new friends.  Later we went out to pizza with the Skokos's, Kevin, Talia, and they kids.  Kevin was trying to convince us to dine and dash.  We all just laughed.  Turns out he had already paid the tab without us knowing.  It was very thoughtful of him.  Later that night, we watched Crazy, Stupid, Love.  A little inappropriate but had some funny parts.  Nevertheless, the day as a whole was rather fulfilling and I'm not just talking about the pizza.