When Dorothy came home from school to find the Relief Society in her living room instead of her faithful but imperfect mom, Rene, she was ill-prepared for how drastically her life would soon change. But, despite the heartbreak of circumstances beyond her control, and with the help and support of her youth leaders Kurt and Naomi, Dorothy found the strength to believe in the healing power of the Atonement for every broken heart, including her own. SHOW NOTES: Today's episode was sponsored by TOFW. To see pictures and watch the LDS Living Video with Dorothy, Naomi, & Kurt, click here. Special thanks to Aaron Woodhouse for letting us invade your home and to the LDS video team who helped us get the original audio for this story: Jasmine Mullen, Katie Lambert, Morgan Jones. Texas Forever, y'all! TRANSCRIPT KaRyn Lay: Welcome to "This Is the Gospel," an LDS Living podcast where we feature real stories from real people who are practicing and living their faith every day. I'm your host, KaRyn Lay. I think it's safe to say that not one of us is going to get through this life without our fair share of heartbreak. It's just a very real part of being human and an even more real part of being a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. There are literally over 18 mentions of the phrase, "broken heart" in the scriptural canon for a reason. We are meant to come to Christ with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, but that's not the intended end state of our hearts. Because we believe in a savior whose very existence promises us that a heart presented to him in pieces, shattered by that beautiful hammer of humility, will be given back to us and glory and wholeness as we come unto Him. Well, today we have a moving story of four people whose hearts were broken by circumstances beyond their control, and ultimately mended together by their choice to follow the Savior. First, you'll hear from Dorothy, who shares how her own heart was impacted by the faithful but imperfect life of her mother Rene. And as her story in her life starts to take shape, we'll meet Kurt and Naomi, two more people who are seeking understanding and answers to their own heartache. Here's Dorothy. Dorothy: 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 was into a lot of drugs. My brother and I are both heroin babies. She did a lot of heavy drugs with us. And she was part of a biker gang. And this biker gang was pretty well known and pretty dangerous and she wanted out. Around the time that we joined the church, my mom wanted to kill herself. And so she took us and sent us to our grandparents. And we spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house when I was little. She would disappear for months at a time, we wouldn't see her and then she'd pick us back up. And I don't know the time frame, but two sister missionaries found my mom in San Diego and taught her about Joseph Smith and about Jesus Christ. And I think that was the first time she felt that she mattered. She didn't know about Jesus Christ, she didn't know about the gospel. She turned to what the world taught. And I think that's the only reason she went down that path. So then when she heard about Christ, she became even stronger. She took what she learned and was trying to be better and she was using her strength. So a very incredible woman, incredible woman. So my mom picked us up from my grandparents' house and then that following weekend, we went to church and I've been going to church ever since. She had a boyfriend in that biker gang and when he found out that my mom was trying to get out of this biker gang, she got beat really bad. And my mom went to the bishop and the bishop told my mom, he said, "Rene, you've got to get out of here. You got to take your kids and you got to go. It's not safe here. You're trying to change your life. You need to go." The rival of this biker gang in California is in Texas. And so she put a map of Texas on the wall because she's not going to find a lot of her old crew hanging out in Texas. And so 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. So when we moved to Corpus, we were going to find ourselves homeless. 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 close to $30,000 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." She went to the temple, and she felt awful. She said that when she went to the temple, she wanted to climb out of the walls, she felt so sick to her stomach. And so I guess she came home, she wrote a letter to her boss, and then she called the cops on her herself, she turned herself in. I think how amazing that must have felt knowing that nobody's there to take care of your kids, but you're still willing to sacrifice to make it right with the Lord. And so I'm not quite sure if it was a few weeks or a month that she was in jail. But instead of putting us in Foster, they moved us from family to family in the ward and they took care of us until the judge put her on probation. I just remember every Friday morning or something, we would take the city bus and she would have to go see the probation officer. And she had to pay back her debt. So not only were we really poor, but now we're poor, almost homeless, and the only money that's coming in is now trying to pay back what she stole. Obviously, naturally, she lost her job. And so she got another job, and that job moved her up to Austin, Texas. We joined this amazing ward with amazing people. Naomi was my young women's president and Kurt was my Sunday school teacher. Kurt: The story of Dorothy started, for me, one Sunday I was called to be a Sunday school teacher. And I was in the classroom talking to the kids, I hear this [noise] and Dorothy walks in the room and she's like making all this noise. Naomi: I instantly fell in love with her. She's super spunky and she became kind of a staple in our home. So we had a plan in our head how life should work out and it was the complete opposite. We always wanted a big family, we'd always wanted four or five kids. We wanted to have children right away, and I just wasn't getting pregnant and I think that was the biggest challenge. We did fertility for 15 years. We had three failed adoption attempts, lots of money, lots of tears, lots of emotions. Kurt: I never worried about having kids, I kind of always had in my mind that "Oh, it will happen someday." And we got to the point that I felt like we were trying to push her body so hard to do something that it did not want to do. And I remember we were standing beside our bed and I just, I just held her 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." Dorothy: Around my 18th birthday, my mom had gone to the judge. Her probation was coming to an end and the judge said "Rene, you owe a lot of money still. You're going to spend a couple of years in prison because you're gonna have to pay off the rest of your debt." And so he goes, "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 and she said, "Dotty, I'm gonna go to jail." She said, "I don't know how long 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 gonna go to jail and I don't really have anybody." I was really scared. Kurt: Her mom came to us, she told us her backstory and some of the challenges she'd gone through and what she was going through currently and was afraid that she was going to have to be out of Dorothy's life for some time. Naomi: She asked if we would take Dorothy into our home for her senior year. Kurt: And obviously, we're like, "Yeah, of course. We'll take care of her, we love Dorothy." Naomi: We didn't bat an eye at that. We would take Dorothy at any time. It was very heart-wrenching. I remember exactly where they are sitting on the couches, I remember all of it. Rene told us how sorry she was. And she looked at Dorothy in the eyes and told her how sorry she was that she had made those decisions and that she was making it right. And she was making restitution for what she had done. Dorothy: So we continued to pray and I think my mom fasted again. And the judge completely cleared her record, took everything and cleared it. Naomi: I wish you guys could have seen her. She was just bouncing down the hall and she just had this glow about her and she was so happy and she threw her arms around me. And she said, "Naomi, the judge cleared me of all my charges." And I will remember this for the rest of my life, she said, "The Lord could take me now, and I will feel like my work is done." Dorothy: I always think to myself that my mom had done everything she could to be a better person. And I like to look at that as Christ, how he can clear our records. And she would tell everybody that, "Whatever happens, I'm okay, because I'm free. I'm free." And she was doing exactly what the Lord wanted and she had changed. After my mom was cleared from her records, she was able to go to the temple. She went to the Dallas, Texas temple, and she had a feeling that she neede
