[SUBDUED MUSIC]
I remember walking to school when
I had a pair of pants that had a side pocket.
And the side pocket had change, loose change,
and so walking down the street, you just
hear the change just jingling, jingling.
And there was a group of gang members.
I had to walk by them to go to school.
And I remember just trying to walk
by them trying to look confident, to not look scared.
But they heard the jingling.
Hey, is that change in your pocket?
Hey, hold your head up.
Be a man, now, boy.
Hey where you going, bro?
Hey, I said, I hear that change.
Look at me, man.
Hey, come on, boy.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
[INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS]
I just ran as fast as I could.
I just had to figure out, How can I get away?
That's the world I lived in, and that's
where I started really running.
[OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYS]
[HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]
I grew up in Queens in New York City.
I lived on the Southside of Jamaica,
so I lived in a low-income part of the inner-city part of New
York City.
[SUBDUED MUSIC PLAYS]
I grew up with three older brothers and a younger sister.
My parents--great parents.
But when I was 11 years old, they divorced,
and life became very different at that point.
And Christmas was never quite the same.
That first Christmas where we weren't together,
we didn't have those family traditions,
and there was no longer those great presents
under the Christmas tree.
[SAD MUSIC PLAYS]
Matter of fact, I think that first Christmas
after the divorce, I don't think there was a Christmas tree.
And that was hard.
It was like, "What happened to my family?"
I started to think, "When I have a family,
this will never happen."
And so it was a lot of confusion for me
at that time as a young boy.
[DARK MUSIC PLAYS]
After the divorce and after that Christmas,
it just felt so different.
I was searching for--"Who am I?
Where do I belong?"
And living in New York City at the time,
you was trying to survive this day without getting hurt,
beat up, or killed.
And that kind of led, at least for me,
to a lot of poor decisions at that very young age.
[TROUBLED MUSIC PLAYS]
I ran to this gang environment.
This gang, I think, was going to offer me some
protection--belonging to a group where I can feel,
in some sense, safe again.
[DARK MUSIC PLAYS]
But I think I was searching.
I was trying to find who I was and trying
to find that identity amidst people that wasn't quite
sure who they were either.
[DARK MUSIC PLAYS]
After being involved in this situation for about a year,
I realized that I'm in a worse situation
now than when I started.
[TENSE MUSIC PLAYS]
And that was the next strategy for me, is figuring out, well,
How can I get away and still be safe?
[HIP-HOP MUSIC PLAYS]
(RAPPING) You know we [INAUDIBLE]..
My oldest brother, who didn't get involved in gangs,
he was involved in a rap group.
And so trying to connect with him
and his rap group when rap and hip-hop and that was
coming to the forefront.
(RAPPING) --erudite, man you grabbed a pen, and then we--
And I think that was my next thing looking for something.
(RAPPING) We did it once, now we checking in with a second wind.
When it comes to lecturing, they call me Malcolm Excellent.
My record spin a veteran--
I would grab the mic, and I say, "Peter P,
my mellow, my brother, get on the mic, let's rap
to one another."
I think I was a pretty good rapper,
but, you know what, it's kind of like hindsight.
And I was a young rapper.
(RAPPING) Yeah.
We coming to a theater near.
Burn it up, turn it up so the people can hear.
Yeah.
We the kind stay synced with the fear,
'cos I can spit slang and still speak clear.
The rap group and slowly getting more involved in that
was a way out of the gang, because I had a reason that I
was doing something different.
But it all attract random violence;
it all attracted that.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
And I think that put me in another perspective,
like, there must be something better.
[HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]
So as I transitioned, as I looked at my life,
from joining a gang, from joining a rap group,
I was still searching.
I was still running.
I was still trying to find myself.
[INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS]
I had another good friend who was Muslim,
and he was trying to tell me about the Muslim faith.
[MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYS]
And once again seeking for protection,
I started to study with the Muslim faith,
because they have a strong health code.
That kept me away from the drugs and the drug abuse and that,
that I was seeing my friends and others getting involved in.
I started to think more about deity, about if there is a God.
And it got me involved in the reading of prophets,
of their words, where they talk about God and afterlife.
And this life is meant to prepare you
for something better.
It was a beginning.
It was a start for me.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYS]
Guess another defining moment was my mother had been--left
New York City and moved to Hawaii.
And she decided to stay.
She said, "I'm not coming back to New York.
If any of you children want to come live with me,
here's money for a one-way plane ticket."
And I grabbed that plane ticket and moved to Hawaii
when I was about to turn 15.
And that gave me a whole new perspective,
because I was away from all the distraction and all the noise.
And moving into an environment that was a lot slower paced,
I guess, gave me the opportunity to think a little bit
about really what I wanted.
And then I went to high school, and then that's
when I got involved in athletics.
And I think athletics was a saving grace for me.
[RHYTHMIC MUSIC PLAYS]
That led to me getting a college scholarship
to play basketball at Brigham Young University, Hawaii
campus.
[FAST MUSIC PLAYS]
As I was playing basketball, being
part of a team, another group, I got to see something unique
on this basketball team.
It was interesting because at the different basketball games
or football games, you've always saw their parents in the crowd.
And that was meaningful to me.
That, once again, reinforced in me
that I want to have a family, that we
are going to be together, that we're going to work together
to get through everything that is tough and hard.
And so I saw that in my teammates and their family.
[INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYS]
When I enrolled in that first semester
and I met with that academic adviser
at Brigham Young University-Hawaii,
she alluded to the fact that this
was a religious institution, and so, in order to graduate,
you have to take a religion class every semester.
Right when she said that, I said, "Well,
I want to study the New Testament."
Because I knew from the Muslim faith
that they talk about this Jesus Christ as a wonderful prophet.
But I want to know, Who is He now?
Who is He?
[SPIRITUAL MUSIC PLAYS]
And I learned about Jesus Christ,
how he was the Son of God.
And I learned how to pray to a Heavenly Father
in the name of Jesus Christ.
[INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYS]
And so I knelt down in that little apartment in Hawaii
and told my Heavenly Father for the first time
that I loved Him.
And then I knew.
[JOYFUL MUSIC PLAYS]
I knew that there was a Father in Heaven, that I was His son.
It was a light.
It was a light that I felt that distilled it upon me in a sense
that I'd never felt before that time.
I felt like I knew who I was.
And I knew who I could become.
It let me know that repentance and forgiveness is in my grasp.
And that helped me tremendously.
[TRANSCENDENT MUSIC PLAYS]
As I look at the world today, even
as I look at where I came from, I
think we still involved in a place
where there's those that attempt to deceive us,
to distract us from who we can become.
[CONFUSED MUSIC PLAYS]
And in the midst of being deceived and being distracted,
we can be discouraged.
We can lose hope.
We can forget our true identity, and not only our true identity
but who we can become.
Because if we don't know who we are,
it's very difficult to realize who we can become.
[OPTIMISTIC MUSIC PLAYS]
When you have feelings of deception
or there's things that are distracting or have
feelings of discouragement, we will feel those things.
And it's OK.
There's nothing wrong with being discouraged.
That's part of this life.
There are times and moments that we'll feel discouraged,
but we don't have to stay in that condition, on that moment.
We can overcome those moments in time
by strengthening our relationship with our Heavenly
Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
I'm grateful that I had those moments of discouragement,
but they don't define me.
Just because I have those moments, that's not who I am.
Who I am: I'm a child of God.
I'm a son of God.
That's who I am.
And because I have that divine heritage,
because I possess the attributes of Deity, oh man!
I can rise above this and be better.
And that's what I'm striving to be, just better every day
and become more like my Heavenly Father
and His Son, Jesus Christ.
If I can do it, you can do it.
That's the thing.
If I can do it, you can do it.
[INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYS]
I never pictured myself having a college degree.
I went to college because my high school
counselor didn't think I could.
I stayed in college because I love learning.
And I went on to graduate with a business degree and then
a masters.
And then I went on to obtain a PhD,
which--I never thought I would do that.
I meet my wife, Stephanie, in college,
and now we have our four children.
Christmas is what it should be once again.
And it has provided that unity, that foundation, that source
of happiness, the source of completeness as we now,
as a family, look to God.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYS]
As I started to look back about my life in New York
City, this running, this finding, the searching,
and then, that first semester, taking that New Testament
class, to say, "Man, I found it!
I found it."
When you're running from the darkness, this feeling of fear.
But when you're running towards the light, there's hope.
You know you're running to strength and peace
and happiness.
We all need to be running to the light.
[HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYS]