I wish I could tell you that my life started out normal.
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While I was growing up, I noticed that there
were things wrong in my family.
Dad would fight with Mom.
I found out that I was not even my mother's child.
I watched beatings and drinking and chaos.
And I began to think that this kind of life was normal.
My mom, or at least who I thought was my mom,
left when I was nine.
I think that's when the feelings of abandonment started.
Dad was hardly ever home, and my older brother moved out.
So I was pretty much left alone.
That's when I joined a local street gang,
and I started fending for myself.
I went through the foster home mill,
where I would be loaned out to different families
for a certain amount of time until I finally got fed
up and left.
I really didn't know who I was or where
I belonged in my teenage years.
And so the only way I could release the pressure
of abandonment was to fight.
So I joined a local boxing gym.
I got beat up quite a bit.
After a while, my trainer, Frankie,
said, "Boy, you need to get some wins under your belt."
I said, "Frankie, what do you mean?"
He said, "You just seem to be too scared to get into the ring
and fight.
The fight comes from within, boy."
I lost fight after fight until, finally, I
beat a boy in the ring, and then I won again and again,
until I started to get this cocky attitude when I got in,
thinking I could beat up anybody.
Fighting became a huge part of my life.
And when I got caught committing a crime in my youth,
I wound up doing a year and a half
at the boys camp for juvenile offenders for drugs
and stealing.
It seemed like correctional institutions only
help you hone your trade in whatever criminal activities
you're involved in.
After I got out, I went to the old neighborhoods
and started bumming cigarettes and sold them for $0.25 each.
After I sold three cartons, I had enough money
for a room, a bottle of booze, a steak dinner,
and I got an apartment at 15.
And I paid for it by selling marijuana on the streets
and keeping the apartment manager high.
My social worker said, "You can't live like this."
So I was ordered by the court to go to a foster home.
The family I was assigned to were
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
and the father was a bishop.
It was great to have an understanding of how
a functional family worked.
They had great kids, who I called my brothers,
and a mom and a dad who actually cared for me.
I felt like I belonged.
For that period of my life, I didn't feel abandoned.
I felt safe.
A year later, I found myself serving a mission
for the Church in Denver, Colorado.
After my mission, I got married, and I had three kids.
And I started my trade as an electrician.
I was awarded a contract for minority participation
on federally funded projects, and I was doing great.
But I wanted to purchase a home for my family.
I couldn't afford it.
So I went back to selling drugs.
During the 1980s, cocaine was king.
And I figured out how to make it and sell it.
Unfortunately, that involved going back to the gang life.
I was buying and selling from local street gangs,
people who I knew when I was young.
I started to see the power and money that
comes from that lifestyle.
I started using drugs again and became an addict.
My wife eventually caught me rocking up 4 ounces of cocaine
and took the kids and left.
My whole life fell apart at that point.
After she left, those feelings of abandonment
resurfaced, and I lost all sense of self-worth.
I'm sure those of you who have ever been in addiction
can relate.
It's a lonely place full of doubts and fears,
second guessing yourself.
And you don't think you belong anywhere.
I fell into addiction in the worst way.
Not only did I use, but I sold, and helped
peddle poison to people I didn't even know,
not realizing that I was destroying their lives as well
as mine.
And that brought me to a dark and lonely place.
I started to wonder why I was even alive,
and if God would even care.
I felt like a grain of sand on the beach--
not noticed, not cared for, not recognized, alone.
I also saw people being brutalized over the drug trade.
I saw people's lives taken.
People fought over territory and power and money.
In the corruption of addiction, and in seeing power and money,
you witness the loss of life.
You witness the loss of freedom.
You lose everything you used to take for granted.
The more people died, you wind up thinking it's normal.
You get used to it.
It just became a part of the trade.
You became desensitized.
I'd been arrested at least 40 times in four different states.
Some of the correctional institutions
can be very violent.
Watching men beat each other half to death
can take a toll on your psyche.
There are two kinds of people in correctional institutions:
predators and prey.
I learned how to fight in the ring as a kid,
but there I found myself fighting for my life.
In 2014, I was at the county jail fighting a 15-year prison
sentence.
I was looking at a second degree felony.
And the only witness I had on my behalf
was a 19-year-old co-defendant who
had just got released from jail, and overdosed on heroin
and died on his mother's bed before the trial.
It looked as though there was nothing
I could do to keep myself from going to prison for 15 years.
I frequently prayed in my cell and asked the Lord
for a miracle.
I remember asking for the God of Israel
to come and do battle for me, because I knew it
would take a god to rescue me.
My cell turned into my sanctuary.
I would pray, read scriptures, and have spiritual experiences,
all the time surrounded by prisoners
who didn't even believe in God.
It was my only escape.
When the other inmates saw that I was praying,
they taunted me, saying, "Why are you
asking for jailhouse Jesus to come rescue you?
Man up.
You're going to do 15 years."
In the bleakness of the night, surrounded
by concrete and bars, I remembered
a dream I had years before.
In my dream, the Savior came across a long beach,
and He found me.
And He picked me up with His two fingers, and looked at me
and called me by my name and said, "I remember you,
and I'm with you."
Those words gave me strength to fight another day.
I also remember my trainer Frankie's words.
"The fight comes from within, boy."
Those of you who have been locked up
know that the public defender does not come on a weekend,
especially at night.
But on a Saturday night, my public defender
came and said that she got me into drug court.
I knew that couldn't be right because they don't let people
like me with violence charges and aggravated charges become
candidates for drug court.
As I walked away from her, she said, "It's a miracle."
That was an answer to my prayer.
It usually takes nine months to graduate from drug court.
Took me a year and nine months.
When I graduated, and I got out, I
had to pay $20,000 in restitution fees.
I had to pay supervision fees.
I had to pay urinalysis fees and drug court
class fees, all at the same time making a small, meager salary
by stacking chairs at a local convention center.
I barely had enough to eat.
I dreamt of being able to one day
be able to buy a pair of sneakers.
But I kept fighting.
I started going to recovery classes,
and I kept going to church.
I was finally on the road that looked like I
had possibly a bright future.
On that journey, I met my future wife, who
was battling her own addiction.
We spoke about recovery, and she was willing to try.
It took a lot of visits to the methadone clinic, nearly
two and a half years.
She finally kicked her habit.
Now we've been addiction recovery missionaries
for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints for the past four years.
Looking back, I never thought I would be where I am today.
I can sometimes easily fall back into the poor me syndrome,
but Christ keeps me afloat in the storms of my life.
I wish I could tell you we have a perfect and happy ending,
but we still struggle.
But through it all, the Lord has never
failed to help me in all of my trials.
It's been a win.
Frankie was right.
All I needed was enough wins under my belt
to come out victorious.
Let me tell you, it's been a long, hard battle
and mostly uphill.
Doesn't get easy overnight.
Took a lot of commitment, a lot of praying,
a lot of begging for help that allowed me to finally
have the hope sufficient enough to carry me
through to where I am now.
I never stopped going to meetings.
I never stopped praying.
But most of all, I never stopped serving others.
As long as I offered to help someone
in need, as long as I kept encouraging those who suffer
to keep up the fight, as long as I kept going to work,
I continued to have the hope I needed to win.
Now, after eight years, I have quite a few wins under my belt.
For those of you who are still suffering with addiction,
for those of you who still are fighting an uphill battle,
for those of you who are struggling with hope, rest
assured, help is on the way.
Jesus is in the ring with you and with me.
He says, quote, "Fear not.
It is I. Be not afraid."
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