I was going through a really rough phase in my life about a month ago. Mentally I was not where I wanted to be at and honestly I felt lost with the absence or presence of any type of God. I had spoken to one of my dad‘s best friends who I call uncle Rico. He runs a barbershop and my city where I live at. I was getting my haircut specifically on that day and I was telling him about what I was going through. He told me about how he’s been Muslim for years and help my dad revert in prison and how much it has changed and impacted his life positively. I was really intrigued from that conversation and did my own research and on December 26 I declared my shahada.

I converted on December 26th of 2021.

It’s coming up in April.

It’s been honestly pretty great, I feel like I have a support system that truly cares about me and wants to see me succeed. With being a river there is a lot of speculation and negative reactions to your past life, but there’s also a lot of supporters who just want to see you be happy and excepted in the community.

I was a Christian before converting to Islam.

They were so excepting, my biggest support system is my mom and she honestly did not care at all. All she said was for me to believe in something and that’s all that matters.

There are daily struggles when it comes to making sure I get all of my prayers in throughout the day, talking to people and making sure I use the right words being that I am not fluent in Arabic and is sexual temptation, but other than that nothing really.

If you feel led to exploring Islam, talk to people, everybody wants to help you succeed and wants to see you be a part of each persons circle. Just enjoy the process and forget the negative people.

My name is Mahlic, I am a 22-year-old man from Ron O Virginia in the United States. I’ve been through a whole lot, but what I want my story to be is something that I feel can’t be told in words, but shown with expressions. A lot has happened in my life both good and bad, but overall my message to you it’s a show love to everyone and anyone no matter what.