Hi my name is Victor Mesina, and fired up for my faith which is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I’m a “barrio kid” from Orange County (next to LA) that grew up seeing people do drugs, people shot within a close proximity and so on. I am literally the only male figure in my family that is not in jail or in a gang. Was blessed to get through all that and managed to be the first in my extremely large family (grandma had 18 kids. 9 boys and 9 girls) to gradutate high school and eventually get my A.S. in mechanical design and now working to get my Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. Been married for 3 years now and have 2 boys (2 month old and 15 month old). Was Mormon at the age of 12 for about a year or so, then Protestant (Church of Christ and pentecostal mostly) all the way until I was 19 until I met my cradle Catholic wife. And boy did that cause a problem. Was atheist for about 2 1/2 years or so until I took many of my science classes in college.
Gave my wife a really hard time and she eventually got fed up and said:
“Search the answers you seek from the RCC and if you don’t find what you are looking for then we will have to split.”
I got upset but we continued to date while I was doing my reading and research on the side. Took me almost 3 years of struggling to finally become Catholic. Thats it in a nutshell.

In Christ
~Victor Mesina

PS-Jon, any interest in doing some articles in Spanish. I am fluent in Spanish and would be more then happy to help. I forget most of you are not from Southern Cali and prolly dont know what “barrio kid” means. Anyone know?