Shortly after being adopted. This is me and my 3 sisters. I am on the top left, Vicky (older biological sister) top right, Vanessa (younger biological sister) in my arms, and Allison the red head, is my adoptive sister!
My parents who adopted me and gave me the best home I could ever imagine!
The day I married my sweet husband, and decided to be with him for all eternity! Best decision I ever made!
One of my first LDS activities with my new LDS family!
My ancestor William was born on April 4, 1817. He was born and raised in Scotland and was the first Mormon in my family. He had a hard life growing up, but eventually joined the church when he was 23. While living in Scotland he was visited by a missionary, his name was Elder Orson Pratt. William learned to accept the gospel and was baptized on July 1, 1840. Shortly thereafter his mother died and he decided to move to America. On September 17, 1841 he received his Patriarchal blessing from none other than Hyrum Smith. The next month on October 6, 1841 Joseph Young ordained him a member of the 70. A year later he was called to serve a mission in Canada. When he came back he became a personal bodyguard for Joseph Smith. One time when a bullet was fired, William threw himself in front of the prophet and got shot in the knee. Luckily it didn’t kill him, but it remained there until the day he died. In September 1846 William served in the Nauvoo Legion during the Battle of Nauvoo, and was there the day that the Treaty of Nauvoo was signed. William was a member of the church during the Polygamist era, and he had 3 wives and 12 children. After the Battle of Nauvoo while the saints were trekking to Salt Lake, he helped build many roads and cabins, and helped plant crops. While doing all of this, he was under the direction of Porter Rockwell. After all of the saints had settled, he moved his family to Mona, UT where he passed away on April 25, 1878.
My name is Jannae Goncalves and I was born in Ardmore, Oklahoma on April 18, 1993. I was born into a family that wasn’t very good, and didn’t really care about their children. My parents had 3 other children beside myself, and because they didn’t know how to take care of us we were put in foster care and eventually adopted.
When I was 6 years old I had a little brother who was the sweetest baby boy. His name was Justin. When he was 5 weeks old he died. He died of malnutrition and massive earaches. I remember the morning he died. I was sitting in the kitchen with my older sister and we were eating oatmeal for breakfast. So, where we lived in a trailer, my grandparents had a house right next door. I remember eating and looking out the window and seeing my grandmother running across the lot to our house. She was crying and screaming. I had no idea what was going on, and I remember being really confused when I found out what had happened, (we were told that one of my parents rolled over him in their sleep). A couple of days after this happened we had a beautiful funeral for him. I remember the priest pouring the dirt over the coffin to signify that he was passing on in life. Right after that happened I remember burying my face behind my grandmother’s back and just balling my eyes out. I had spent so many nights up with him and trying to get him to go back to sleep.
A couple weeks after the funeral, I was walking home from school with my older cousin and sister. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I walked into the house with my sister. My parents were on the couch, sharing a white, plastic bowl of green grapes. As we walked in the door they told us that we had forgotten to make our beds that morning before we left for school. I could sense that something weird was going on, because they seemed to be dressed up a little bit more than usual. My sister and I went into the back and we made our beds. After a little bit I could hear voices coming from the front room. We went out there and there were people there dressed in black. They had these huge big black SUV’s. They made us get in the backseat, we drove away, and I never saw them again.
I feel like this part of my life is really what shaped it. After this happened I went through tons and tons of foster care homes and went through a lot. I used to blame myself all the time thinking that I was a bad person, and I was a terrible daughter, and my parents didn’t love me. I realize that they just couldn’t take care of me and I am so grateful that they gave us up!
When I was 8 I was finally adopted with my sisters. This was something that was really lucky for us because it is really hard to adopt siblings together. We found a family that was willing to adopt all of us together. We had gone through a time where they tried to split us up because they thought that my little sister would have a better chance of being adopted on her own. Luckily my parents wanted to adopt 3 little girls. My parents have 6 kids of their own and the space between the youngest and the next youngest is 8 years. They adopted us to kind of fill in the space between them, and make sure that my youngest sister didn’t grow up as an only child.
Right after I was adopted I was then baptized and confirmed a member of the church. I remember going in to see the bishop and being so scared. I had no idea what to expect and felt really nervous. When my dad led me into the baptismal fount, I knew that I was making the right decision! I also got to be baptized with my older sister, which was a really cool experience. We were baptized on the 20th of April 2002. Then the following Sunday I was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! A month later my little sister turned 8 so she was baptized on May 25, 2002. This was a very special day because right after she was baptized we headed straight to the Albuquerque temple where my sisters and I were sealed to my family for time and all eternity. This was such a neat experience! I remember being able to look in the mirrors and feeling the spirit so strong!
A couple of months ago my mother was able to go through something similar where she could be sealed to her parents. My mother is the only member of the church in her family, and both of her parents died within the last 10 years, so she was able to do the temple work for them. She sealed her parents together, and then she was sealed to them. As we were walking out of the temple, she looked at me and said, “Jannae, I’m as cool as you now!” It was really funny!
Shortly after our adoption was finalized, people heard about our story and we became quite famous. When I was in the 5th grade 20/20 National News came and did a piece on us. They wanted to know how we were transitioning from being in foster care to finally being settled with a real family. They had their camera people with us and everything. As we got off the bus 20/20’s film crew was waiting for us and everyone on the bus was trying to get on film by sticking their arms and heads out the windows and trying to wave. It didn’t do anything, but it sure was funny watching all of them try so hard! Not only did 20/20 want to do a piece, but we were also in People magazine, and in the Parade magazine, and in multiple articles with the Albuquerque Tribune. I have all the article clippings and sometimes it’s fun to pull them out and read them again! When I made it to college my roommate’s brother wanted to do a piece on me personally about my story. That was something that was really cool as well!
An interesting fact about me is that I have changed my name a couple of times in the past. In foster care my sisters and I lived with a couple who decided to change our names and moved us across to another state. When you are in foster care you can’t move away from the state in which the children belong. They decided not to listen to that and moved us anyway. They changed my older sister’s name to Robin, mine to Stephanie, and my little sister’s name to Amber. Also when I was born, my name was Melissa. When my parents adopted me and my sisters we quickly realized that they already had a daughter named Melissa, so we changed my name. We tried to get by without having to change names, but my older sister was getting sick of being called “Big Melissa”. She was in high school at the time and she felt like everyone was calling her fat. So my parents took the matter to court and got the legal papers signed and we officially changed my name to Jannae. It was hard to get used to at first. Especially being in the 3rd grade. It was hard for people to remember what to call me. When they finally did get it down it was awesome.
Life was pretty normal after that. Nothing big happened besides weddings in my family. My family decided to move between my sophomore and junior years of high school. It was a hard move. I had just turned 16 and really started to make new friends and then we moved. I had a great time once I got the hang of actually living somewhere different from where I grew up. I gained a lot of new friends and had bunch of memories. I did a lot of hard things as I grew up. I have a huge fear of public speaking and had a lot of “opportunities” to get up in front of a lot of people. At the end of my Junior year I tried out to be my high school’s Senior class president. That was a really hard thing. I had to do a skit in front of the entire senior class. That was really hard. I was super scared to get out there, and then my friends who were supposed to help me out with it kept messing up during the skit. It was a great experience though. I was able to gain new friends and I didn’t have to give a speech at graduation which is definitely a plus.
I was a Seminary graduate, which is awesome, but I also had to give a talk in front of the senior class as well. That was a super scary thing for me to do. I thought I dodged a bullet with giving a speech in front of my senior class, and then I ended up doing it anyway. I have never been good at giving talks, but I feel like that talk went well. So after graduation I decided to work all summer at a bakery that my neighbor owned. Working at the bakery was a blast! I had so much fun decorating donuts! I would wake up at 5 in the morning and I would get to work by 6 and open up shop. Those were good days!
When that summer was over I came to Rexburg and I started going to school. College at first was not easy. I had a hard time being away from home. I loved my roommates though, and I got really close to the girls who lived in my complex. College was awesome in regards to a social life! My friends and I were constantly going out and doing things together. We became really close friends. Because we were constantly doing things my grades did take a spill and that was not good. I was trying to have a college life, but at the same time I was trying to get good grades. Other than all that life was going really well.
As the year went on, the Parade magazine started to do another piece on my sisters and me. It was our 10-year anniversary of being adopted and they wanted to see how things were going. I interviewed with them and everything was great. In October of 2011 it was issued. It came out and everything was awesome. One day I was on my way to class, and I got a message on my phone saying that I had a friend request from someone. I didn’t know who it was at first but decided when I got to class I would check it out. I got to class and logged into Facebook. I realized that I didn’t recognize him but thought that he was someone from my ward and I just forgot. So I accepted the friend request and started looking through his information. He seemed quite a bit older than me. When I realized this I went to go delete him when he messaged me. He called me by my nickname that I had before I was put into foster care. I was really taken back. Well as it turned out he is my grandfather. I was so surprised that I got super emotional right in the middle of class. I left class and went to call my dad. I didn’t want to do anything without him knowing and I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. So I called him and because my dad works for the government he said that he would look into it and do a background check and make sure that this guy really was who he said he was.
As my dad looked over those things the next couple weeks we found out that he really was my grandfather and we started talking. I found out that when the Parade magazine had done the piece about our 10-year anniversary he saw it and had realized that we were his granddaughters whom he had lost. It was quite amazing and to this day we still talk! This all happened in my first semester at school. Later that month I met my husband and we started dating.
I met my husband Jeff through my friend who lived upstairs right above me. They were FHE siblings and had become really good friends. When I broke up with my boyfriend she thought she would introduce us with the intention of us only becoming friends. Well after a while we started dating and she didn’t like it at all. I felt really bad that she didn’t like it, but we were so happy so we started dating behind her back. Not exactly the best move, but we had to do it. As we started dating things moved fairly quick. We took really long walks every night and shared a lot of personal things with each other. We became really good friends and I knew I could count on him for anything! Finally after a couple months he decided that he didn’t want to date anymore and he wanted to get engaged. So on January 13, 2012 he proposed to me on the top of the State Capital building in Utah. Well at the top of the steps at least! He proposed and everything was great! We told everyone, and my friend eventually came around and was ok with us being together.
Planning our wedding was super stressful! I did everything by myself while I attended school. My mom was with me trying to get everything done as well, but no one really did much until the semester was over and I was at home. I had 2 weeks after the end of the semester before our wedding. Because I was trying to do everything myself I got really sick. I ended up getting 12 cold sores on my bottom lip and 5 on my top all 2 weeks before my wedding! It was extremely scary and I was so worried that they wouldn’t be gone before the big day! My bridesmaids really stepped up though and made everything beautiful! It was wonderful!
Jeferson and I were married in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on April 21, 2012. That day was absolutely beautiful! The weather was great and the sun was shining! It was really funny because as I waited for Jeferson to be done changing for us to go outside after the sealing, he took forever! I was seriously waiting for about 20 minutes for him to change. I thought for sure he would have to be waiting for me seeing as how I had a huge dress and veil to take care of. He took so long, and when he finally did get out to me he told me that there was a young man in his locker stall taking forever to get changed! After the wedding we went back to my house for an intimate luncheon with my family and our bridal party! It was so much fun! All of our groomsmen ended up falling asleep under trees at the park where we held the luncheon. It was really funny. The reception was beautiful as well. Everything came together quite nicely!
A couple of days after the wedding my new husband and I took a road trip to the other side of the country. We went all the way to Boston in our little car. It was such a fun trip! We stayed awake the entire time and just talked and talked. We would have taken the scenic routes in some places, but we had to get to Boston fast or else we would miss our other party! My mother in law threw an amazing reception for us in Boston. Everyone was there, and the great thing was that my parents flew out to be there with us, and my grandfather made it as well. It was so cool to have my parents and my biological grandfather there to support me! The party was beautiful and Jeferson and I had a blast getting to know others there who we didn’t know. My mother in law got really carried away when she was inviting people!
After the wedding life started to settle and we started our journey as a newly married couple! It was so magical to be living in a place in the city with my new husband! It was definitely hard, and probably one of the hardest things I have done yet, but it was a blast, and I have so many fond memories from living there. My mother in law starting learning English so she could talk to me and has been doing a great job! My husband is Brazilian and was born in Brazil, and his mom sometimes has a hard time with English! Living in the city in a whole new place was very trying. I was so far from home, I was surrounded by people who didn’t speak the same language, and there was such a cultural difference that sometimes I would get really frustrated. Jeferson started working right away too, so I would be home by myself all day and wouldn’t have anyone to talk to because I didn’t have a job yet. After school started things got a little better. It was still hard, but at least I had something to do during the day. I eventually got tired of just sitting at home all day though and went out job hunting. Turns out finding a job in the city is not an easy task, but Jeff and I had faith that something would come our way.
Well, every night we went to the gym after Jeferson got out of work. One night as we were at the gym we saw a bunch of help wanted posters so I though I would apply. The next day I went in and applied and talked to the manager, and was offered a position right away. It was a miracle and a serious answer to our prayers. Not only did I have a job which would get me out of the house and give me something to do, but we also had extra income, and I was starting to gain new friends! It was so much fun! I started off working as a sales rep, where I would sell gym memberships, At first it was really hard, but I started to love it and became really good at what I was doing! I became really good friends with my boss and things just fell into place. We loved our little life that we had started for ourselves! It definitely was no walk in the park, but it was so much fun! After a while of working at the gym I got offered a position to move up in the company. I became the Assistant Manager and had a lot of fun helping to run the place. I learned so many new things, and developed myself as a person and fell in love with running a business.
Then time started nearing Christmas and Jeferson and I knew that we had to start planning our trip back home. As we planned things started happening at the gym and my boss was let go, which meant the Manager position was open to me. It was a really hard thing to turn it down, but we both knew that we had to move back to Rexburg so that we could finish school.
We made it back to Rexburg without too many difficulties and have created a wonderful life for ourselves. Life definitely isn’t easy but through almost 2 years of marriage I have learned so much about myself and about what I need to do to keep working at a relationship. I always thought that being married would be so easy, but it’s not. Marriage is hard and it takes a lot of work. Heavenly Father likes throwing things in our paths and catching us off guard, but I know that as we have faith to keep going, He will always be there for us!
· My biggest life goal is to become a mother. I’m going to have problems having children, and I hope that when I do become a mother that I will be a good one.
· I want to serve a mission with my husband once our kids are all grown and out of the house.
· I want to go to Europe someday, and travel through and see everything that I possibly can.
· It has been my dream for a long time (since I was 6) to adopt a child. I want to continue my own legacy, because I, myself, was also adopted.
· I want to own a home as soon as I can. As soon as my husband is done with school we will buy a house and really settle down.
· I have always loved service. I want to create some sort of foundation or charity that will help children in poverty receive the medical attention that they need.
· I want to learn another language. My husband is fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese, and I want to learn one of them.
· I want to own my own business. I worked in a bakery when I was in high school and loved it. I would love to own my own cupcake bakery!
So to begin this class I wanted to bear my testimony about the importance of Family History work. I know that it is not the easiest thing in the world, but it is SO worth it. I have been blessed in my life so much by doing family history and others doing it. I had an experience a couple weeks ago where I was able to go to the temple with my family and my mother sealed her parents together and she was also sealed to them! It was wonderful! It is a wonderful thing to do a bunch of family history work and then take those names to the temple! I think it is a great blessing for us to be able to do the work for our family who is not able to do it for themselves, and I am really excited to learn more about it!
I was put into foster care when I was 6 years old and adopted when I was 9. I was adopted by a wonderful LDS family whom I love with my whole heart! I am married to my best friend, and we strive every day to make each day the best that we can.