 Salaamu alaykum everyone Honestly, I feel privileged being with you all here today. How many of you are Muslim? Can you raise your hand? Okay, so we have one more shalom, one shalom Uh, first off all praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Without his grace without his mercy without his forgiveness I wouldn't be here today. You wouldn't be here. We wouldn't all be here today, right? It's all through an invitation and I always try to remind everyone That islam is literally an invitation for you Like how many times do we go to someone that isn't muslim and we start to talk about it and they just do not understand They just can't get it and it's literally Allah who guides who he was And so alhamdulillah, I wanted to really talk about my journey in islam And you know, maybe you all can connect through that journey. It's not easy. You know, we've all been You know had these struggles in our lives and maybe sometimes Someone speaking to you that's relatable that can understand will help you connect some of those questions that you've had and so You know, I come from a latina household My mother is from Guatemala and my father. He is Puerto Rican And so I have six brothers and one sister Alhamdulillah, um, we were raised in a christian household My mom she was um, she came here at a very young age And my father unfortunately, he ended up leaving us when I was five years old So my mother, you know, she struggled as a single mother Um, and so through all her endeavors and hardships We got connected through the church. So the church, you know, really helped us Try to find ourselves through life. They were very giving You know, I went through a lot of obstacles trying to figure out the spirituality of it So, you know, something that I realized throughout the, you know, me being involved at the church was that There was a little bit of a disconnection when it came to understanding the spiritual aspect of it And I see some of you, you know, not in your head. Yeah Because a lot of times what we read in the book is not what's being portrayed There's a little disconnection there. And so, you know Then that becomes where we start to feel a little bit You know depressed and sad and we're trying to get answers and we can't find them And so Alhamdulillah, you know, um, you know throughout my years I was just, you know, and going through dark paths, you know, trying to find myself I ended up being Catholic. So I went from Christianity. Then I went into being Catholic And then again, here we go. Still that disconnection. I'm reading something, but it's not adding up, right? And so You know, I was like, okay I'm just going to take a break a little bit, you know, from religion and just try to find my way in the world Well, that doesn't work out either because now I'm walking blindly At least I had a little something to hold on to You know, so and then I was like, okay, so at the I was around 17 years old where, um I went off to college. I moved down south and you know, I My brother at the time he ended up calling me and he goes He goes Elena, you know, I want you to know that I became a Muslim. This was like my mentor in life And honestly, I ended up really being upset. It was a disappointment to me I felt like he betrayed something that we, you know Didn't know of it was like shocking to me and I actually ended up disowning him because of it I didn't want anything to do with him. So I went a whole year without talking to my brother I still, you know, spoke to my mother. I still called her. I checked on her And um, and I would kind of ask about him and he would tell me, oh He stopped going out. He stopped hanging out with these people. He stopped, you know, doing these things and I was like, oh, that's good I don't want to know anything about him. You know, it was just my stubborn ways And um, and so one day she tells me You know esby, so we ended up his name is esby But we ended up calling him after a month after he took his shahada. That was this like his new name So he says esby He went to this place where they had a box and it was a black box. It ended up being umrah. He went to the kawa And so I go really what's the kawa, you know, it just kind of made me Realize like why do you have to go across the world in order to get some type of Spiritual connection or what so I started to wonder a little bit And during this time I said, you know, maybe I should Maybe I should go and read about Islam instead of me being You know negative and just being judgmental about it and so I went to the so back then this is 25 years ago Can you imagine we didn't have any social media? We didn't have all the technology we have today It was literally us going into the library and we had to research everything on the computer and so I started to You know Read books and read about the science behind, you know, Islam And one of the books that really really touched my heart was this book that was called what is islam about by yaham air merc and it goes into like all the scientific reasoning behind Why things happen? And I and I really sat there and I said, oh my god, you know, like I started to cry a lot and I was just like Is this Just for real, you know, this is what I've been asking my whole life You know, I couldn't believe the whole trinity thing Why do we have to go through this person to get to god? And this was like I can actually feel connected to god alone So that was one thing that really hit me when when I decided to take that that leap was the fact that a lot of these churches didn't Explain to me or they felt like I only could get connected to him through them Through going to the sunday or talking to that was the only connection now here islam You have that self-reliance on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala anywhere you are you can pray wherever you want And for me that was freeing That's me being spiritually free and connected to him wherever I was and I was like, oh my goodness. Is this really Is this how it is? and so alhamdulillah, you know, so At the age of 18 I decided to take my shahada and honestly it was the greatest day of my life I was down a wrong, you know, a dark path And it brought me back to life. Honestly, you know, 25 years now I'm looking back and I don't know where I would end would have ended up if I didn't, you know, take that decision Alhamdulillah, and it's all through his invitation by the way Um And my journey began after I took my shahada because Three months after I took my shahada ramadan came And I was like, okay, you know, so I'm the type of person whenever I I go into something I go 110 into it. And so here I'm like ramadan is coming now. I got to order books I got to read about it. I got to study And you know at the time I was in school I lived down south I was in a very rural area where no mosjids were there. There was no family and No Muslims at all. And so I just had to really figure it out um, so I began to read about ramadan And one of the things that captured me was the fact that Community family and connecting eating and joint so that was something that I was Really excited to be a part of So, you know, my first day of fasting Was a little bit trying because you know, again, I'm alone in this area where I have nobody and I had my prayer times so back then again, we have to print everything out So I had my prayer times up on the refrigerator and I would cross it off. Okay this time. Okay. It was like a daily like accomplishment to do it and so So by the third day, you know, it got very repetitive but and then I started to feel a sense of sadness and loneliness and this is It ended up hitting me a lot that Everything that I read wasn't necessarily what I was supposed to feel Right? Everyone's experience is different so Whatever someone else is going through it's not necessarily exactly what you're going to go through in life Everyone is going to have a tailored way of doing things right? Alhamdulillah and so By the fifth day I broke down I'm going to be honest. I sat there and I just cried And I cried and I cried and I went into sujood and I was like this is not Supposed to be how How Ramadan is, you know supposed to play out. I'm supposed to have family and friends and you know As time went on I always got more and more connected to Allah And so this was really his plan At the end of the day, it was like he designed that time for me to just be connected to him and By the second third week Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he became my best friend. He became my confidant He became my counselor And I ended up slowly detaching myself from feeling the connection of people By the fourth week I felt so much peace in my life. I felt so much tranquility And it was because it was a spiritual cleansing that I did not know was partaking You know, I I always like, okay, I'm just going to stop eating for for a time period But what else entails with this? And there was so much connected to it Me Building that relationship with God that I was never taught to do It was almost you have to build the relationship with people or the priests or you know different people when I did Turn all of that to focus on just Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That's when I got completely disconnected and I said, oh my god, I am spiritually free And it was probably The best feeling in the world and it made me who I am today It made me be a person to now This Ramadan, this is my reset button This is me disconnecting myself From everything and everybody and just focusing on my spiritual healing my spiritual connection And so there's a lot of wisdom behind fasting, right? A lot of our desires that come with it, you know, some people they say, oh, you're not going to eat from You know sundown to sun up or sun up, you know, they it's not necessarily just not eating I mean think about it. Just you're controlling all your desires You're controlling not eating whenever you want. We have so much free will to eat whenever we want Imagine like some people in the poor countries. They don't have that So we're training ourselves to one. We're being empathetic Right. There's a reminder all the time on how How privileged we are with food and the things we have here So that was one of the the main things that I took from Ramadan was the fact that I had so much access to everything And now I have to really come to terms with myself with internal struggles that I had within myself So, you know after I ended up, you know Taking my Shahada, then I you know had my first Ramadan I moved back to Cleveland with my family and subhanallah, you know, my family none of them Besides my brother all of them were Christians still And so here I'm coming back to a household where no one really understands us You know, I'm I'm trying to explain myself And they're not understanding it. And so I ended up realizing that there's no explanation needed You know the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam. How did he give Dawah, right? It was through his examples And that was exactly how my brother gave me Dawah He really I didn't talk to him for a whole year And through the his ways of changing. That's how I was able to connect And be like, wow, I really love this religion or look at Maria. She changed. Look, she stopped going out. She stopped being with such and such Those small actions are so impactful When you take your Shahada and I'm going to be honest You're being watched They're they're waiting for you to slip up and say see she turned to be a Muslim and she did this this and that No, this is you showing them that you're actually practicing and you're being for real about this And so that's one of the advices that I can give you You know, I know some of you are worried about your families But honestly the Dawah is so powerful. The prayer is so powerful to help people and he's the one that controls people's hearts We don't do that. You know, I ended up learning that years down the line that um I would try to change people and control their hearts and that doesn't happen. It's all through his will Some of you are fasting, right? So I wanted to also connect to if anybody here, you know, if it's too long for you Or you guys have to take a break. Let me know. I know, you know, your first Ramadan fasting it becomes hard So um, this is a open and safe space to feel free to to let me know that, you know, you needed a break So, yeah, so after I ended up going and moving in Me and my brother, you know, he lived separate from me but we kind of collaborated and we talked about our families and we would still Enjoying with them, but we would not enjoy in their particular Holidays, so that's something that we had to do We had to set a little bit of barriers and And let them know like we're serious about this But we're still going to be here as a sense of support and we still love you guys We still are here. Whatever you need us even more So this is what I ended up doing is I became more resourceful for my mother You know being a muslim, you know, it's an amana and this is an obligation for us to help our parents This is huge and so I took that very seriously and through those efforts My mother she um after six months of me being around her She said to me Elena, I want to be a muslim And she started crying. She said You you're just an amazing person And I feel like I want to be you know part of this and so For me that was everything she she ended up taking her shahada and After she took her shahada my sister did And then my other two brothers did And alhamdulillah, you know 25 years later my family became muslim and um So Another another story I want to go into is the fact that my brother when he went to umrah. He made two du'as one of those du'as was That his family become muslim His second du'a was at the time that He had taken a shahada. He was married and his wife decided to leave him She did not want to be with a muslim And they had three children at the time which you know to him. It was very heartbreaking He had to decide either i'm gonna save myself or continue to be with my family And he said what good am I gonna be if i'm gonna stay with my family if i'm not good with god and so he decided to you know To take a shahada and and and go that route And so um subhanallah, you know after we all became muslim His wife ended up getting married to a palestinian and his kids were raised in islam So allahu akbar, you know, so all of his du'as were were answered to him So the power of du'a again, I always say just pray to him. He's there waiting for us We leave him. He never leaves us, you know, he's waiting sitting there waiting for us to pray to him so You know, then I ended up saying okay now I you know, I have my family But how do I enter the community space? Right, so I think this is very challenging as well But also what I got out of it was the fact that we always have a perception of us not being accepted Right where we feel like automatically we're the outsiders But realistically we're really not because the shahada is so powerful And what we felt to realize is that we just gained billions of brothers and sisters Like anywhere you go in the world if you see my sister's in islam if you see a hijabi, you're like, okay I'm good, you know This is now just normal to us and so I had to figure out how to get connected to different types of community and so I just Organically walked up to everyone. Salaamu Alaikum. My name is Elena And I am Latina and that's what I started to do in the community I would go up to people and I would shake their hand And that was like me breaking that barrier of feeling like I'm an outsider And so sometimes and I always say this ask questions Because when you assume things they're not actually what it is and so One of my main focuses was okay. I'm going to try to just be myself Because islam is not really trying to change who you are. It's trying to enhance you And it's trying to bring you on the right path This is all we're doing some people say that you know islam is it's so hard and it's really not Allah gave us the tools to make things easier for us And so alhamdulillah, you know By me reminding those reminding myself of those things and actually being Educated in in islam too. So that was very important for me So through those efforts, I ended up, you know Getting married by the way. My husband is sitting up here. Mashallah. He's palestinian and And I was able to adhere to different culture, right? So I'm a latina. I like spanish food I love to be around family and friends and so I'm getting married into a palestinian household They like food too, but you know, I like the sazon the sofrito. I like to put the little spanish stuff in the boon So I would go back and forth with my mother-in-law and she would make the arabic food And I would throw in my spanish seasoning, you know So that was like a good little, you know, that was her, you know, welcoming me me welcoming her And you know, and it was just an amazing, you know, connection But again, that doesn't happen all the time I was fortunate enough to be married to someone who was Open-minded religious and he saw me as a muslim, you know And and so when you connect with people you look at them as just a muslim We are brothers and sisters at hamdulillah and so, you know After I got married and um and at the age of 27 now, I'm gonna fast-forward At the age of 27 My brother ends it up reaching out to a friend of his and they got connected to a person who they thought was my father So, you know, my father for those of you who are just showing up my father left us when we I was five years old He walked out on us. My mother, you know, she was a single mom for a long time And so we got connected to my father after 27 years And um, you know, I sat with my siblings and we decided to invite him and at the time he lived in Arizona we all lived in Cleveland and You know, we made that decision to, you know, bring him to just visit us and see, you know And we agreed that we were not going to talk about the past As muslims, we we have to learn how to let go of that. That's part of us growing, right? And so my mother had a little bit, you know of and with, you know, every right She had a little bit of, you know, resentment, but again, she trusted us And she said, okay, you know, bring him down And so, you know, he came down and we Opened our arms to him. We never talked about, you know, him leaving us We invited him to have dinner with us. We talked about, you know Our our work and family kids And we spent the weekend with him the whole entire weekend Saturday we went to the zoo together. We spent time And so on sunday, you know, it was time to for him to leave And um, you know, he said bye to us. He hugged us and as he was walking out to the door He looked back and he goes I want to be like you guys He said I want to I want to be a muslim And so he left and he took a shahada And you know, it could have went so many different ways, right? It could have went me being upset at him Or me throwing things back at him or But the fact that I was spiritually free and I was In a good place with God that that didn't matter to me You know in life we hold on We hold on to situations We hold on to things that people have done to us and it only affects us It holds us back from growing It holds us back from loving each other We are all walking testimonies for Islam And this is how we bring people to Islam There's no other way to explain it, but For my father to have taken shahada and and him walking away from us not even knowing us Was the the The best feeling in the world, right? After he took his shahada He left and we didn't talk to him For maybe 15 years we never heard from him again This past october we've received the phone call that my father had passed away My siblings and I we we got together and we said okay He took his shahada and he's a muslim Now keep in mind my mother was a single child She had no brothers no sisters She was an immigrant She was here alone. I was raised alone with my siblings. That's it and so I never knew my father's side of the family at all so after You know after we found out that he had passed away We came together and we said we have to give him his right As a muslim we have to bury him islamically Because he's our father And so we all flew to kanadik it And you know when we got there I ended up having 17 uncles and aunts My father Flew to connect he lived in arizona. He flew to kanadik it because he wasn't feeling well and he died Where all his siblings were and so we were united with all this family And lo and behold, you know a lot of the family members were pastors So half of the the family were all pastors. So here we're sitting We're sitting in this gathering and we're telling them we want to bury him islamically Because this is his right And they're saying no nothing indicated to us that he became muslim And so when we're sitting there, we're just like, oh my goodness, but he took shahada We know and so right when we're sitting there. So panama A guy comes in in a wheelchair. He's being pushed in And he goes salamu alaikum and we're like, you know, me and my siblings were like, what? And then so he is My nephew that lived with him that used to go to the masjid and he took his shahada and Me and my brothers we just I started crying I'm like, dude, I can't even make this up. This is like So then they had to they had no choice but to allow us to bury my my father and so we ended up burying him humbly and islamically and And it was truly truly a blessing for us to have that privilege to do that so honestly, one of my my biggest things is and what I wanted to tell you all is that This isn't a marathon When you take this leap You walk it through slowly and you first start off with your intentions You know intentions plays such a huge role in our lives Whenever you do something make sure you're doing it for the sake of Allah If i'm giving something to someone i'm giving it for the sake of Allah If i'm going to the masjid i'm doing it for the sake of Allah Anything that you do and then Allah will slowly guide you You know, he is the one who guides he starts opening doors for you and so Hamdulillah, I am now living in sacramental. I am the charitable aid director of al misbah A A nonprofit organization that service services over i'm going to say 12 000 refugees We help refugees get resettled And I have an amazing family See, I was this person that didn't have anyone and now Allah brought amazing people like even you all you guys are amazing To be a part of and to be here. So jazakum allah hidden for everything I really appreciate you all and i'm going to open the floor up for questions if you if anyone has any questions You know, she's going to bring you the mic So I go mashallah that was an amazing store. Thank you to share Uh So her question was what was my brother's reaction when I told him I took my shahada He cried a lot I I could only imagine how he felt being alone You know, and so for him this was his prayer being answered So he cried a lot and we became more than best friends. He would call me four or five times I couldn't get rid of him at that point. He would call me. So what did you do now? Did you make your prayer? Did you do this? He's like the islam prayer guru like now everything has to go by him So alhamdulillah and he became my mahram. He became my wali, which now I had a protector Um, so it became just an amazing thing. Alhamdulillah anybody else Anyone this is a safe space. Please open up ask as many questions as you like I'm sure we're all in the same boat right everyone So my question is as like someone who's not a v word, but let's say you know a lot of people who are v words How can you help them feel more comfortable with their journey? It's a born Muslim, right? You already know like certain number of practices But however, we are also not perfect and you don't want to overwhelm your v word friends or like people are coming to you So what are some of the steps that you could take to make them like, you know That you belong and you can do this and like not overwhelm them That's a good question. Um, so some of the times when when reverts Get connected to people, you know to other Muslims that have been in it for a long time They get overwhelmed sometimes because they try to fit in so much and they feel like they're not doing anything, right? So I suggest just letting them be Slowly, you know, um, if they put their hijab on wrong, that's okay They'll get to to put it on right or say for instance, they're not doing the prayer correctly Give them the tools but let them do it at their pace You know, sometimes we try to push them too much and it just becomes overwhelming It takes it takes a lot of time and effort and so just being a support Being a listener and allowing them to ask questions instead of you always directing them So, um, I know like a few sisters that they had, you know Sisters try to tell them oh go here. Go it becomes overwhelming So just when they reach out to you just be very resourceful for them and have you know, your ears open to listen And invite them over for food, you know, this is what they want They love to sit and and eat and connect and that's amazing So through food, you know, it's the hearts, you know, profoundly So just invite them over and just be their family really that's what they want And I'm sure sometimes A lot of us come to this is because we're lost, you know, we need that family support and so Um, that's the only way we get it is through other muslims, you know So I we suggest just just be there as a sense of support Brothers you guys are quiet Is there um any non-muslims here? None Yeah Oh, you're right. Yeah, so we have non-muslim and then none I want to know what brought you here today. Can I can I put I'm sorry? I got to put you on the spot, but I want to hear from you. This is a mutual thing, you know Uh, can I can you give me a second? Can you give him the microphone? Thank you. Thank you for that I appreciate um, you being vulnerable and He said salamu alaykum guys like come on. You're ready. It's And I say this all the time. This is everyone that is here is invited. This is by invitation alone Honestly, like you coming here Allah opened the door for you to be here and inshallah, you know May he guide you to islam if that's for you because You and me you can probably that you know attest to this that We're blind And you know, we can't see when we're not, you know For me when I took my shahada, I became unblind And you're probably not feeling it right now But if if you decide to take your shahada, you're gonna feel this load come off of you And you're gonna start to see everything clear and that happened immediately It was like I got a reset button and I'm just like, oh, you know, this is really what this is what I've been looking for And again, that's only by invitation So alhamdulillah, you know, thank you for coming here and being a part of us You are family regardless the doors are always open here in FCC Anyone else would you like to run would you like to say anything today? Thank you for that story. What's your name? dan and your name What Dan and Dan I'm telling you he is the best of planners you guys are meant for each other So Dan, why don't you stick around and watch Dan take a shahada tonight? And maybe this might be something inexperienced for you Insha'Allah, which is a call ahead and Dan and Dan for your story I mean and I commend your wife too because she was probably a good example to that, right Alhamdulillah see through her examples. She was able to to bring him in so You know, again, this is One an invitation to it's a community effort And something that I want to just before we leave we have like five four minutes before we head into the next room MCC Pleasanton is literally a gem here You have not only a masjid, but you also have a community center MCC helps so many underprivileged You know families out here. They provide so many resources Make this your home. Make this your community We work together with MCC all the way to Sacramento. We have a bridge where we give each other, you know needy Resources we help each other with with all kinds of in kind donations And what I want to say is how I got really connected was becoming a volunteer I would take so, you know our dean After you know, this is years down the line You know, you perfect the salat and then you you know, you do the fasting But and then we forget about the Zaka aspect of it now Zaka is just not giving money. It's actually giving your time And doing things for the sake of Allah and so throughout the years, you know, I wanted to still, you know Try to get connected and feel more, you know sound and what I did was I I became purposeful to helping those in need And so that balanced me out And so what I tell you is give time to help those in need and then you'll feel very connected Um, so just like a lot of head and everyone for taking the time to be here today I feel honored having you guys on and having a start with you all too because now I got more family members Washa Allah and so um, so I'm gonna be here until later on tonight Feel free to come up to me talk to me and you know, I'll be here as a resource as well So Thank you so much. Uh, you had a lot of us tearing up and crying and snodding and everything So thank you so much for your beautiful story. Um, may Allah reward you and bless you and allow you to come back here Many more times Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, so now, um, we're gonna go break fast To have iftar. So what we're gonna do is we can just go to the room the banquet hall If you guys don't know it just follow the line And then we'll go there break our fast and then we'll go to Salah If you haven't registered to get your ticket to get your plate of food If you you can get it after you break fast. We don't want you guys to miss Doing that and there'll be your registration table by the front door. Thank you all so much And those of you who are not there, please stay with us and have dinner with us You know, just just be a part of us. We appreciate it