 As-salamu alaykum peace and blessings be upon all of you. I've got myself a bit situated here find a bit of comfort. I want to be focused as I try to deliver a story of myself. I am a PhD of myself so I think I'll do okay as long as I edit myself as I go. Okay um you know I wanted to first start by sharing a prayer that I always recite before I speak publicly which isn't often but when I do I turn to tools of the Quran it helps us to focus bring ourselves back to our purpose why we're doing what we're doing. It is a piece of the chapter of Surah Taha and it was a prayer that Moses had made to his Lord and his need and so it I'll say it in English says my Lord expand for me my breast with assurance and ease for me my task and then tie the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech and I always find that if I start myself with that everything just kind of unravels in a good way and I feel content with what I've said as I've walked away from it so I just wanted to share that with you all. So I also wanted to share another little thing before I just go into talking about myself and it's something that I think really relates to everything I'm about to say tonight. There was a scholar in the 13th century in Syria and his name was Ibn Qayman of Josi and he said this he said the only person who knows the reality of anything is someone who was in it and outside of it and so when I heard that it just really made me reflect on my whole life because I was born into a family that was practicing as Catholics and I was baptized in San Francisco as born race in the Bay Area and my parents were not extremely religious so there wasn't a lot of religion in the family but they had belief in God and we would go to Easter Sunday and we would attend church on Sundays and I remember as a very very young girl maybe the age of three or four and it was an Easter Sunday and I had my Easter basket and inside of the basket there was a little you know the the children version of the Bible and I just remember thinking I was so excited because I wanted to know God and I don't know why I remember that because there are probably a hundred other memories that I could have remembered from that time in my life so I I remember God as far back as I can remember being and for that I am grateful and I do think that has a lot to do with what what we've all been created with is the knowing of God it's it's a it's a fitra which is what we call in in Arabic it says like the natural state of the human being we all know God to some degree within our own self and so I do believe that that's what started my path in in my childhood and my childhood was a little bit haphazard to be honest I would lie if I told you it was the most beautiful carefree childhood my parents divorced when I was in second grade and the term I rolled upside down but I had these amazing grandparents who really just kind of held me with all of their their attention their love their presence and so that were the wings that you know helped me to kind of grow and and I did grow up quicker than the average person by the age of 15 I had convinced my family that I was ready to move out and start my life and it sounded crazy at the time and I look back and I think it really was pretty crazy if you think about it but you know it was also a time in the Bay Area where you could do that I was working I started working at my family's restaurant when I was 13 and it was kind of out of necessity because not for making money to be honest it was more because my my father worked there and so he had us on the weekends and so it was a way for him to spend time with us even though he was working and so his father my grandfather he and my grandmother they opened Lucia's Italian restaurant in Fremont California in 1977 when I was three years old and and by the time I turned 13 is when I started busing tables cleaning up helping the wait staff and and it was a really beautiful experience you know my grandparents who are very generous people they were the type of restaurant owners where if there was a community member who was having a problem they would do a spaghetti feed you know to raise money to help and and so I grew up with that charitable and outlook online and it's something I'm grateful to this day because it's shaped my business and it's one of the most important things that I take from my business is to be able to give you know to be able to feed and I think that's just a really beautiful way to to connect with people and so growing up in the restaurant I I guess the other part of the story is where my husband comes in so he is he is born and raised in Pakistan and he came to America at the age of 20 he's over there in the audience and so I I met my husband at the restaurant when I was 10 years old he had came to work for my family and I didn't know him but I remember seeing him he took our order and I remember exactly what I ordered I ordered our raviolis and a side of sauteed zucchini that's what I ordered and I don't know why I remember that he took my order except for that maybe in those days it wasn't as diverse and I was about you know 10 11 years old and so maybe my 10 year old brain saw a face slightly different than what I had you know become used to and so we started working together well previous to me working with him my my brother started working with him and my brother would come home and say you know mish is this really cool guy who plays fall with me in the back on you know our break and I'm you know 13 years old so who's this mush guy you know what are you talking about right and um and then I had the opportunity to start working with him when I was just about to be 16 years old and we became he's just a very he was a friendly gentle person and I really enjoyed you know his workmanship my grandparents by that time he had been working with us for six years were considered him like a son and my father as well very much really just loved and respected him and he was always there to help out you know anything that was needed and so through my work with him I developed a crush and I saw within my brain that this is like it's hard to explain but I was like this is the person I'm going to marry and I you know I look back to that time and I don't really believe that it has anything to do with me I don't believe that I Lisa just said you know this is what I'm going to do I really believe God put this in my heart and this was the path for me to find Islam and to find the life that I've been living over the past 33 years and so he always says that he came to California from Pakistan to take care of me and that wasn't his first school when he came to America his school was his family back in Pakistan he's one of nine well excuse me he's the ninth of ten children and so he wanted to help his family who came from humble humble means and so when I actually we were becoming very friends you know working together a lot and I said well what if we go out for dinner you know what if we have the movie together and he said well I can't do that we're not married it's one night no we're not but so he said well you know you have talked to your dad you know because I'm I'm I noticed it's not going to be just that simple you know you can't just go out together so he spoke to my father and my father gave the blessing and so we very quickly decided that we wanted to get married and it's one of those funny things where if you know the American dream everybody wants somebody to propose to them right but I was in a rush for some reason and I know the reason it was for me to accept my faith I truly believe that and so I proposed to him I said what if we get married what like why are we why are we wasting time here like let's just get married and he said well you know the thing is that I'm probably going to go bald like by the age of 30 and I said well I don't care I don't it doesn't bother me and he said and also why you know I take care of my family I spent I send a lot of money to my family and I will always do that so you would have to be okay with something like that and I didn't have very much and I said well that's I don't mind we do whatever we need to do so he went back to Pakistan with my picture this is pre-iPhone or any type of internet right so he flies back home to Pakistan with my picture tells my in-laws okay mom and dad this is who I want to marry and it's like a nightmare for any you know parent in Pakistan whose son has moved all the way to America and they come you know home with the picture of this young girl oh my gosh but then my sister-in-law had the best the best idea she said I'm going to pray a prayer of guidance and ask God for guidance and then whatever the answer is you know we'll be at peace with it and so she came back the next day and she said that it came beautiful and so she told her you know parents that just be at peace with it and they did they truly did he came back to America and got married and traveled back to Pakistan to meet the family and during that experience of me traveling back to Pakistan is where the story and it took a while for me to get here to Mirchi cafe my restaurant so the first trip that I had taken to Pakistan I was just 18 years old I had just decided I was going to enroll in culinary school I had been working with my family from you know for five years in the restaurant and I've fallen in love with you know this Pakistani man and I knew nothing about the culture and there wasn't much available in the bay area in those days so when I landed in Pakistan in Lahore it was like an explosion of everything you can imagine and then some and the most beautiful part of it was my family my new family were just standing there waiting to just accept me and give me a hug and my mother-in-law grabbed my face and she said she said you're not my daughter-in-law you're my daughter and from that moment on that's that's what I thought you know the love and respect and the caring you know so that just bursted my heart even further right and so on my wedding day it's the day that I decided that I would also convert to a song and so that was 33 years ago and um and it's really again as I started by saying the only person who knows the reality is one who has been in it and out of it and so I've lived without it and I've lived with it and so I do really believe that I know that reality and I'm grateful for it and everything good I know it's kind of cliche but anything that you see good of me is from from my faith and anything you see that needs work that's from me and I'm working hard I'm working hard and so you know imagine going to Pakistan at such a young age and being you know interested in the culinary field not only had I not experienced like real Pakistani food but I had also not experienced like continental food in Pakistan so I ate a burger um and I ate a you know you mentioned the club sandwich so we felt I'll tell that story so we went to a restaurant called Shazam it was the back then very popular it's still it's still there it's just not as popular as I used to be and I saw it on the menu a club sandwich and I remember what a club sandwich is right three layers of bread some type of meat some type of vegetable usually some cheese in there so that's what I ordered and what I got was something very similar and look but flavor was just immense you know the chicken breast was just popping with flavor the fried egg had like some of the special spice on it so there was just this extra little tingle in your mouth you know and it just redefined what I understood food to be you know I realized like this is food I'm comfortable with but it's still different and I would say that was the seed for my for my business I didn't know it you know in that moment I didn't think I'm going to open a restaurant that's going to have this food you know I went back home and worked in a family's restaurant and um my grandfather passed away soon after I graduated culinary school I went to the college of culinary school in San Francisco it's called the California culinary academy no longer exists unfortunately they made some poor choices and it's no longer in service but it was an amazing school and it was a two-year program and I learned every aspect of food pastry even butchery running restaurants table service you know the whole nine yards and and then went back to work for my family's restaurant rather than go out and work for other restaurants because my grandfather had just passed away and I just felt extremely connected to my family's business it was something that my husband and I had kind of grown up together in in a way you know grew into our marriage in that in that restaurant all the customers were very much like family to us was like a community restaurant and they all knew us and they all you know at the very beginning when we were getting married they were doubting like oh my gosh you guys are getting married she's a little younger you're 18 so yeah and I said no you'll see you'll see you'll see and 33 years later you know we're still showing them but um and so I worked on another level with my family's restaurant as I started managing and that's the beauty of the story is because if I had just gone out and worked in restaurants outside of my family's restaurant and gotten to other kitchens that would have been interesting too right I would have learned other cuisines in other ways but um running a restaurant from from the managerial aspect gave me a completely different view a different side of the restaurant that I hadn't really paid attention to when I was working the other aspects like waiting tables and cooking in the kitchen and so to manage the business was a completely new experience for me and and my husband stepped in and we kind of tagged team you might say we kind of did it together and so a few years later I felt like I needed to be challenged and that's when I opened the catering business and I left my family's business and um but then my parents my my parents were my grandfather and my grandmother excuse me my uncle and by then my my grandfather passed away my father had gone into law enforcement and my brother had also gone into law enforcement and my my grandfather I mean my grandmother and my uncle excuse me were left in the business and they called us and they said we're really in need of your help and I knew I couldn't do both because by then we had three children three young children so I had to make a decision between my catering and my family's business and so I went back into the restaurant and sold my catering and um and during that period I realized while I was working and children were growing up and they started asking questions about what type of work we were doing because when I had left they were so young that they weren't really connected to the kind of cuisine that we were selling and I realized you know when my son was asking you know you'd sell wine and you sell you sell pork items and how does that like how does that work for us as Muslims right and so I had to really think twice about what I was doing because I realized like I have to live my values and I respect my family's values and I love them dearly but at this point in my life I had to kind of be at service for my family and so we decided to let go of the business and and then at that point I was in a period where for the first time there was a chance that there would be no restaurant in my life no food service you know of some sort it's I was three years old from the beginning right I was like destined to be in this business even my great-grandmother was a baker excuse me and side note she would sell angel food cakes during the the Great Depression so she would make the angel food cakes and my great grandfather he would go around and you know sell them so I was destined to do this work I'm sure of that and and so sitting around the family table because by then some of my sister-in-laws had made their way to America and so he spent a lot of time with family and I was just throwing out this idea of hey what another restaurant if we were to you know have halal and we could do American food but with a halal you know meat and we could you know do a little you know twist of you know the burgers like they are selling the poxon and everybody was just shaking their head there was no such thing in that time there really wasn't and most of most of all the halal food in America at that time was ethnic you know just solid ethnic food beautiful food but nothing to the degree of you know a comfort American food with with this halal offering and so everybody thought it'd be really risky because the business is already very risky right opening a restaurant I think the first five years it's like 90% failure rate so it's it's almost an impossibility but it still happens and so but I'm a very determined person as you've been telling and I proposed my husband right so and there's a side note to that as well because for many years I was really embarrassed you know because again like everybody hears of the story of how the man gets on one knee and and proposes and I always felt a little bit embarrassed I didn't get on one knee but I proposed marriage basically but the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him his wife Khadija may God be pleased with her she proposed marriage to the Prophet Muhammad and when I learned that you know years into my knowledge of seeking knowledge it just it changed the whole perspective I had on my my story my love story so I'm happy to have modeled you know a behavior that was very beloved and beautiful to the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and so let's see so we set out I you know I was very persistent and my husband God bless him he's my investor that can be tricky because we live together it's a it's a lot but he's very patient and and we set out to find a location we ended up going back to my catering business and we we bought it back from the person we sold it to and built the restaurant it took about eight months and in 19 or excuse me 2004 in Fremont Erdington district we opened Ritchie Cafe and you know back then it's funny because like I said we just didn't know what to expect number one and a friend of ours he had a acquaintance with Imran Khan who was the Prime Minister of Pakistan and a lot of people know him through his cricket years as well and he was just starting his political campaign and so he asked him hey you know my friend's opening this restaurant would you would you come and you know be a part of that so he came and it was a really beautiful day you know I I look back to that day and I was filled with you know so much hope for the future of what this could potentially mean my intentions were really a to serve the community with halal quality halal food something that again was more of an American experience rather than a traditional cultural experience because I am Italian-American and so my Islam is seen through my experience right community to model my grandparents and honor them and then also this was post 9 11 so before I married my husband but like before before 9 11 you know where's your husband from is from Pakistan where's that I don't know Pakistan is post 9 11 Pakistan are you kidding me have you ever visited oh this is scary and so that was another intention to show the beauty of Pakistan through you know the culture of eating of listening to the music as you're eating tasting the flavors but seeing a burger that you're very comfortable with right something everybody's seen in America the burger but you can taste the flavors of Pakistan so that was my bridge that I was trying to trying to build and so you know God I do believe God really rewards you for your intentions and I do know that my intentions were pure because they have definitely been rewarded we've been in the community for 20 years and it's hard to believe it's really I was 30 years old when we started the venture and now 50 and so I'm you know I feel though as though I haven't yet even climbed a bit of the mountain I'm still at the very base I never felt like I got anywhere and I think that's good because it just means that I have enough passion you know to keep going and keep trying I think once you reach a destination per se there's ever such a thing you kind of lose interest so I haven't gotten there yet and I'll tell you a story there's I was at a meeting about five years ago at the restaurant and some of the people I didn't know and so after the meeting a gentleman turned to me and he said you know I really want to thank you for opening the restaurant and a lot of people say that and I'm always flattered and you know thank you so much and he said no you you have to understand something he said I was born and raised in Chicago to a family from my parents were originally from Pakistan and I didn't know where I fit I didn't know if I was American I didn't know if I was Pakistani and I just struggled for many years with this identity he said that the minute I walked into the restaurant I sat down and I saw the environment and I ate the food in that moment I understood who I like was meant to be and then I thought wow that's crazy that's that's pretty exciting like that's really the fuel that keeps my passion going is you know touching the hearts of other people and that's that's my goal and some days I hit the mark in other days you know I don't know I try my best but but it was something really really fun to listen you know hear another perspective and let's see what else have I you know I I feel like I've spoken so much I do want to say one last thing and then I if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer is that when I converted to Islam my family really saw the religion as something foreign but they embraced my experience you know they were happy for me they were supportive but they saw it as me becoming Pakistani and I you know I didn't know much myself in those years I was so young but if ever I could you know do it again you might say I would love them to know that this is a faith for all it's not a foreign religion you know I have somewhat I started wearing a job 10 years ago so quite late into my conversion by my choice I was the one who chose to wear it and um and I was kind of struggling with should I wear it should I not wear it and I asked one of my teachers and I was making a video for Pakistan to show the beauty of Pakistan I said I'm making this video do you think I should start wearing a job just like you know first the safety of being in a public eye and you gotta feel more comfortable and he said don't do it for that he said if you do it for that you're going to take off so if you're going to do this do it for God and that's you know over time really was set in my heart and then one day it just became like if I had to because I love God so much this is a public display of God's love that's that's basically what this is and what happened when I took the job because I had been you know looking like an average typical American person for 40 years of my life I could walk into any room and become anything you know like I wasn't identified as a Muslim and so um but it's sometimes it is a little difficult but I'm not complaining about it because this is something I've chosen but if there's any message like I would love to drive forward is that you know I met a woman a few years ago and I was talking to her about my past kind of a little bit of the history I was telling you and I could tell she wasn't really interested and I was okay with that because not everybody's interested right but it wasn't until I connected my father who she knew very well to me then suddenly I became Lisa the chia in her eyes again and and it was like so stark like here's a person who is foreign who I don't understand and I'm like this is Lisa from the Bay Area like you know this is Lisa Lucia like you know I'm sure I'm Lisa I'm odd today but I'm Lisa Lucia this is who's inside of here right all the experiences that I experienced as a young girl as a teenager even growing up into my adult life that's who I am and I forget that people don't see that right away you know they immediately see something foreign and and I respect that I think that we meet people where they are and my job is not to you know it's not to fix it but I'm happy to answer questions you know but it was a real stark moment it's like oh I got my identity back but then as she connected me to something that was comfortable for her right so I tried to also look and be mindful when I see something that looks foreign to me not to meet it with with you know with that understanding trying to keep myself open so I um I would love if anybody had a question I yes please hi thank you so much I feel you I'm also nervous so forgive me I are only I don't mind yeah have you been to yes yes actually we were there in December yes and I'm grateful to say it's my it was my fourth visit yeah but I also waited until I was 40 and I think the first thing I thought when I finished the pilgrimage uh when I was you know in that year I can't do the math in my head right now but 10 years ago there we go but um I just remember thinking oh I didn't come soon enough and these legs will not carry me forever and and physically it was tiring um and it was new and I think the fear of not knowing right made it more tiring and after it felt as though if you've ever experienced something where it was such a grand effort and after it's over you feel so peaceful and that's that's how I felt yes and then after we went to Mecca we went to Medina which is where the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him is buried and it was very stark indifference because Mecca is more like majestic it's very powerful feeling there's a lot of high energy and you feel that high energy and it's sometimes overwhelming in a beautiful way but overwhelming and then you get to Medina and it's like a cool breeze and you just want to sit back and you know just enjoy that beautiful feeling so that that was the experience that that I had from both Mecca and Medina thank you so much for your question anybody else so profitable well you can ask you can ask my husband get into the business okay well I mean um okay so the true answer is I'm not sure if we've ever been a hundred percent ever profitable I know that sounds crazy and a lot of people see the success that we've had in 20 years um but here's the thing my business is a passion business so what I mean by that is I don't cut corners to make profit so things are extremely expensive right now and in any level headed business owner would start to cut cut cut as much as you can to stop any bleeding but because I've devoted myself to this business honestly for the sake of the community and for the sake of my love of what I do my husband is my investor um and he's the one who fills the gaps when they're needed I always joke that he's you know he's the guy who's subsidizing the Halal Burger scene but here's another part of the story if you want to endeavor into opening a business a restaurant business the first thing is like really truly do your homework meaning that you know exactly how to do every single job that and you know exactly how to cook every single thing that you're cooking and you know how to do all of the service at the bit you know how to do all of it first because if you hire people to do it for you you're not going to be able to manage them correctly right if you don't know the job yourself secondly find a very inexpensive lease that even exists anyone because the overhead that this is the very simple approach to this restaurant business 30 percent is food cost of your total right 30 percent is labor and in today's world it's really hard to keep it in 30 percent we're like at 40 percent right now because it's like between 20 and 25 dollars per hour per person so just you know if you add that up it's just it's really hard but you know we believe in fair wages so there's that too and then this this remaining right 40 percent is like your overhead it's every fixed cost and insurance and taxes so it's really like a business where you're saving pennies to to make your saving pennies to make money it's it's not an easy business and no fool would ever you know it's like some days i think i'm very foolish to be doing this it's very physically painful to you know i got slip discs and bad back and you've lived heavy things it's very stressful there's a lot of problems a lot of problems and the minute you fix one problem then there's another problem and then 10 problems after that and you never find you know you never find like you're at the top but if you are passionate you really believe in the work you really love what you're doing connecting to your customers you know then it's then i say absolutely go for it yeah yes please sure well um the truth is i didn't want to expand my husband here he he thought there was great potential in the Dublin community a lot of our customers were begging us please open in the valley please open and you know maybe Dublin i just knew that i'm only one person and i cannot ever be in more than one place at one time so for me it just seemed like a no-win situation you know but we found a good lease and i'm a dreamer too right so i said yeah sure let's do it and why did i pick Dublin um honestly it started with the good lease i'm not going to lie because you can't afford just to open up anywhere right and but secondly i grew up between i grew up in San Leandro Hayward and Fremont but the valley was where my cousins lived and so i have a lot of fond memories so it's like all a part of you know my childhood and so it felt very couple and my brother lives in Dublin so yeah thank you okay thank you any other questions anywhere coming into time a few more minutes right so i watched shows like kitchen numbers but go around and see i see this very high-ranked person and i see you it was very like they're surrounding you here and so i'm just curious like uh you know i'm expecting a shorter book who's like to do all the things and you've got this like or a big chef kind of look at the meats and everything that's all things up you know it's going like for you well no i mean i that's a good i i don't know that i always use you this energy i'm sure if you ask my family they have another story to tell right nobody's perfect um but i'm not a line cook mentality so like in the restaurant industry there's different like slots that we all have to fill and every one of them is important so i'm not a good line cook because i don't like to do the same thing every day you know like repetition that makes my like my ocd brain crazy like i want change and so i'm more creative and so i think the creativity is what you are sensing so that's where i fill the space in my business at this point where i'm always looking for the quality control i'm always looking for the problems to solve and i have to do that in a very calm manner because if i approach my staff up here they're not going to listen you know they're just going to shut down and and then we're going to get nowhere right so i've learned over the years like you just have to really bring it down inside your like process it first here and then formulate how am i going to approach this problem and get myself heard and i'll be honest i'm a woman on top of it and that's tough sometimes and i don't mean to sit and play that fiddle but you know if i was this angry person in the kitchen with my staff then i'd be labeled you know the angry woman right and it's really different when when the man comes in and he's powerful right i'm angry and they're powerful and so i've also learned how to kind of use my femininity to you know kind of finagle people in a way that they can hopefully honor and understand right like this is important we need to get this done so rather than forcefully demanding it you know yes please that was about the beautiful inspiring story i mean thank you you mentioned that you you wanted to know in your early age you wanted to know about god yes and knowing god or finding god is a journey yes so when did you feel that you found god and what inspired you when you began to work with what was the most exciting for sure um so when did i truly know god i feel like i always did and i you know as a young girl i would i would pray in my own understanding of what prayer looked like in my bed you know i would talk to him and i looked back at that little person and i just want to give her a hug you know because i didn't have any tools i was just doing what was innately you know natural to me and so i'm grateful for that i don't take any ownership to that i don't know why he picked me you know i don't i just don't because i know there's a lot of my beautiful beautiful friends of mine who struggle with understanding you know the connection with being close to god interestingly enough my name lisa is from elizabeth and it means close to god which i didn't know until i converted and everyone said you have to change your name to a muslim name but then i found out no i don't if it's a good meaning i can keep my name and i think close to god is an amazing name so i'm keeping it um the other question you asked was uh what inspired me and the honest truth and sometimes it's not as like easy to package but it was love of my husband it really was the catalyst that that brought me into islam that's the truth i was very interested because i was in high school at that point and i was in the history class and they were teaching about the history of islam and i was like i know a muslim i work with him and so i would ask him some questions and he was like you know laid back cool guy you know so that's the truth you know it's not the stories that you know sometimes a story is not as straightforward it really came through love of a person and i see that a lot did that because he knew me better than i know myself and he knew how to grab me he knew what i needed and he gave me that and then he allowed my heart to open because he also knew me well that i'm a very soft person like my heart gets hurt easily so he gave me in-laws who were so soft and so loving and and not judge myself you know i didn't come in you know into the religion looking like this right i looked like lisa lucia who was born and raised in the bay area to you know american family which is fine it's a beautiful thing but i didn't have any knowledge at all i remember going to pakistan the first time when somebody said like oh don't put your feet on the table there's food now i wasn't doing that thank god but in a moment i was like who's an american like we just go home and we like put our feet up right and then there's food there but they honored the food so much that it was a huge no no or if somebody wanted a glass of water and they didn't just pick up like in my palm we just here here's the water right and again no disrespect but in the islamic world they honor it it's on a beautiful train right and i've witnessed those things as a young girl an 18 year old girl and and that opened up my heart to the beauty right and it's the simple things that pierce the heart if you can't you can't pierce the heart with the deep stuff right away because the heart's just you know doesn't know how to take it in you have to start with the little things that you know your day-to-day stuff so those are the things that like started to open up my heart and i met my nieces in labor and we were very close in age because like i said my husband's the ninth child so he has a lot of siblings who are much older than him so they had children who are close to my age and they were very different than myself but we were close to an age and they were very they were very pious that's the best way i can describe them in a beautiful way they're just very beautiful pious people and and i just like was attracted to that it was just beautiful you know so it was little by little and the beauty of it was it was not forced down my throat nobody told me what to wear nobody told me how to do anything they just accepted me for where i was at and that allowed me to take my experience you know at my own pace right because when we force things down people's throats usually they you know fight back and so so that yeah i hope that answers the question you get to hear more from me again oh first of all thank you so much for coming thank you part of the way you're welcome to be really appreciate everybody here thank you but i'm reminded you have something we might have adopted whether i'm a third-band or the rest of me say 56 years ago yes but one thing that changes people's attitude is food and what's what's listening to you guys and religious questions is essentially going to go about the rest of yes yes i agree 100 and i think that is the bridge right that is what we're all working towards doing here is to get you know one another to share our experiences this is just my small story this is what you know ultimately we all have a story of God in our heart you know we all sit here together and we share that and that you know it's just to me the most beautiful special thing that we can do with each other so thank you all i'm embarrassed to even talk about myself so thank you so much for welcoming me and your community i hope to see you