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In 1998, Sione Havili was on the verge of achieving two significant goals he'd had for his life. One play college football and two, serve a full-time mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. His story took a significant turn though one fateful night when gang. In his neighborhood prompted to participate in an act of retaliation.

One that although it took a bit to catch up to him, changed his life forever. Sione Havili's parents immigrated from the kingdom of Tonga, making him a first generation American citizen. He is the oldest of eight children. Sione is a graduate of Texas Tech University where he played football and graduated as an honor student with a bachelor's degree in human development and family studies in 2000.

Five. He is currently regional Vice President of sales at Domo, a tech company based in American Fork, Utah. He is happily married to his high school sweetheart, and they are the parents of five children.

This is all in an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so honored to have Sione Havili on the line with me today. Sione welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Morgan. Excited for today. Well, Sione comes highly recommended by some of my dearest friends and they speak so highly of you Sione and as I was prepping for this interview, I could see why I.

You have a light about you and I just, I'm excited to learn from you today. I wanna start out, you were raised in the Glendale neighborhood of Salt Lake City, and you've talked about how you kind of had two different sets of friends. I wondered if we could kind of start there, if you could share what these two different groups of people were like and then what do you think it was about you, Sione, that made you able to relate to two very different groups of people?

Yeah, I think it, we need to take a little step further back just in my upbringing. Okay. So my parents are originally from Tonga. Uh, obviously my dad was a bus driver for 38 years. My mom was a homemaker. I was the oldest. And naturally when they migrated from Tonga, they found a home in Glendale, Utah. And so being a Pacific Island Islander.

Obviously there were a lot of other Tongans in the area, and so I had noticed over time that I had two friends that had two sets of friends that had two different focuses. One set of friends were, uh, they aspired to do good things. They wanted to go to college, they wanted to, you know, they figured that college football was probably the way out of the neighborhood to get a free education.

Had another set of friends that they. Just lived in an environment fostered by just gangs. And so their one going focus was to make sure that they were able to do whatever they needed to to survive. And so I kind of gravitated. To both, and I try to keep both happy. I ended up hearing Chad Lewis in a fireside talking about our circle of friends are like a garden, and we need to choose whether we plant roses and things that cultivate into beautiful things, or if we allow weeds into those.

And essentially, I, I had both and it, it was hard to, to manage both at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it's interesting because. I feel like very few people can kind of. Go either way. Um, all of us have an ability to go either way. I guess I should say. I'm, I'm, I find it interesting that you were able to do both at the same time, and so Sione like the, the first group of friends that you mentioned, you were highly recruited to play football out of high school.

You signed a letter of intent to play it. Brigham Young University, you received a mission call to serve in New York City, that when you were gonna do that before you got to BYU, but between the time of your call to serve and your actual leaving on your mission, there was a situation in your neighborhood that changed your life forever.

Can you tell listeners what you remember about that night? Yes. So leading up to that night, obviously I'd made a decision that I was going to serve a mission. I was gonna leave everything from that rough group of friends behind, and for the most part, I did pretty well. But that one faithful night in October of 1998, I let my guard down.

Uh, I had called one of my friends just to see how he was doing. Coincidentally, at the same time there were gunshots and there was a drive-by shooting at his home. He lived just around the corner from my house. I ran down to see what had happened and what was going on, and I could see there was a lot of, uh, chaos.

His mom, a, a niece, a little baby, they were crying because of the gunshots through the living room and so. Just a culmination of events. I ended up in a van with, uh, those group of friends and we retaliated. Uh, we went to the home of those that, uh, did the drive-by shooting and eventually burned the house down.

And, uh, it was a night that I regret every single day of my life and altered not only my life, but all of those on both sides lives forever. And I think there's a, an important. Detail, which is that nobody was harmed in your act of retaliation, but it did result in that home being burnt to the ground. You didn't confess prior to leaving on your mission, and were instead contacted.

As a missionary in New York City by a detective who is investigating this case. Can you talk to me a little bit about receiving that phone call? What was going through your head and, and then I, I have a follow up question. So I was out for about a year and a half. The mission was going extremely well and the New York, New York South mission I was serving in.

Queens at the time and unexpectedly I'd received a phone call from the Salt Lake City Police Department, gang task force implicating me in that retaliation to that drive-by shooting. And they told me that the next day I would be extradited home to answer questions. Had a meeting with my mission president and I thought it was just gonna be a quick visit and, uh, go out and just sit down and come back.

But, uh, it didn't end up that way. Sione, I think it was in the documentary it talked about or referred to you as like the, the leader in the retaliation. Is that accurate? So they pinned me as the Mastermind. A lot of it I think was just. It was, uh, it ended up being a highly publicized case. I was a BYU football player at the time, an LDS missionary, and so naturally the detectives figured that this was probably the best opportunity to find a solid case.

There was no evidence, there was no witnesses, there were right multiple testimonies, and so I was implicated as, as the mastermind behind the event. I think more because of. My position as a football player and as an LDS missionary. But yeah, that's, that was the reason behind the, the detectives call. Do you ever, I, I, I wondered, as I was watching, if you're ever hard on yourself about not confessing yourself before you were tracked down.

Yeah, that's a tough question. You know, culturally, as you kind of figure out my two sets of friends situation, me being the oldest of eight, that incident happening around a corner. Culturally, what was going on in my mind is I was just thinking about my seven younger brothers and sisters. We didn't have a lot of bedrooms in my home, and so the majority of my siblings slept in the living room there.

Was this dynamic within the neighborhood that you don't say anything And no one ever asked me any questions. My bishop, I stayed president between the time that I received my mission call and, and when I left. And so I was kind of caught in between a rock and a hard spot. Now to this day, do, do I wish, you know, I had told somebody yes, but I do think that everything happens for a reason.

And, uh, when I ended up coming home, I, there was, uh. Just a domino effect of events that happened in my life that I felt that they, they had to happen. But yes, if I were to go back again, I wish that I had an opportunity to do that. I was just fearful of the implications that it would have on my, on my family.

That makes sense. So Sione you. You have this, you received this call, and then like you said, you met with your mission president. And I wanna talk a little bit about how people responded to this situation, because I feel like the way that Ecclesiastical leaders parents. Family members, how we all respond in the wake of situations like this has a tremendous impact.

And so can we talk first about your, your church leaders, how they responded in a way that helped preserve your testimony, or did they. They did. So my bishop and my state president at the time welcomed me back with, with open arms. Uh, elder Samuelson was the area president at the time. So they actually, when I came home, um, I had to answer some questions and they were just trying to figure out what was going to go on with my situation.

And I wasn't released for a matter of, uh, a couple weeks before they figured out what, what was the next step in, in my missionary experience. But. The ecclesiastical response was one with love, and I'm super grateful, obviously, culturally, you know, my dad always told me that if I came home early from a mission, it better be in a coffin.

And so I think I was more fearful of what my dad and mom thought than, you know, what Henley father thought at the time, to be quite honest with you. And that's probably some of the reason why I didn't say anything beforehand. I think I was more fearful of, of my father. Than I was mm-hmm. Of my father in heaven.

And Interesting. It was, yeah, it was just an interesting dynamic, you know, growing up. But, um, I was, I was walking home with open arms and, you know, obviously helped initiate the repentance process for what I had done before I'd left. What about that conversation with your mission President Cone? What was that like?

I know it, it was completely a surprise for him. Obviously, I'd had a lot of success, had the opportunity to baptize a lot of people in New York City, and so that conversation was, you know, let me know, uh, what I can do to help. And he started asking questions. His name is President Dean Croft. He's from, from Oregon.

And, uh, more of his questions were, were aligned on, you know, how can he help, just preparing myself for finding legal representation. And I just didn't think that there would ever be anything that would come of this because I had turned the corner and had changed my life. And so he and I stayed in pretty close contact for the entire.

When I was locked up, he and Sister Croft would come visit me after they'd finished their mission experience. And so I was so grateful, and we stay in contact today. If I ever make it out to Portland, we'll sit down and do lunch. If he ever comes down to Salt Lake for general conference or any other visits, we'll sit down.

And so that's a, a relationship that I cherish and I'm grateful for to this day. It is interesting to think about what you, what you just said about you didn't think anything would become of it because you had changed your life and you were doing great things and I think that that, that is a very real feeling that people feel a lot and so it's very relatable.

Si. You finished your mission in Salt Lake City. What was it like being from Salt Lake? Serving now in Salt Lake. So as we had mentioned through that process, I was given an opportunity to finish and I was super grateful. Serving in Salt Lake was unique. I was in the Salt Lake mission. I was just maybe 15, 20 minutes away from where I grew up.

There were a lot of people that would drive by, see me walking on the street and honk. They knew who I was. So it was, it was very different than New York City. In New York City, we would commit to baptism on the very first discussion, and we would teach six to eight first discussions a day in Salt Lake.

You know, it was more member work. And so working in Salt Lake was, was very unique. The first ward that I was called to actually my mom's brother, happened to be my, my Ward mission leader. And, uh, you know, I don't think it was a coincidence. Uh, my uncle Willie. It was one of the greatest experiences for tho those two transfers to be able to work with him and have an impact in his ward.

So it was, it was so different than New York City, but it was a great experience. That's neat. You ended up Sione accepting a plea deal to serve a year in prison, and you've said that year was one of the best experiences of your life, which I feel like is a rare statement to make about being in prison, but I think it's.

You, you've said it was because you chose to make it. So how did you make that year one of the best experiences of your life? So it didn't happen overnight. I think the first three months were some of the most difficult days, weeks, minutes of my life. What was interesting was just the, the. Paradigm shift in my scripture study right on my mission.

I was studying to prepare to cross a light and go to battle with anyone that wanted to know about the, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But when I was locked up, was trying to find answers for myself, right? I had hit rock bottom and I stumbled across a scripture in Second Nephi chapter two, and this is a point where.

Lehigh is giving counsel to his sons and he ends up talking about their need, need, be opposition in all things. Even the, the, the Tree of life in, well, even the forbidden fruit and opposition to the Tree of Life. And I realized that that point that there needed to be opposition. And so it became one of the best experiences in my life because I chose to make it.

So there's a a saying that goes, if life gives you lemons. Make lemonade and I decided, it kind of turned it a little different if life gave me lemons. I wanted to eat lobster tail. And so I found out there were a host of resources Morgan out there where I could find, they call these, they call 'em trustee jobs and programs that if I were to get a trustee job and I were to.

Graduate from Alcoholics Anonymous, narcotics Anonymous, get a GED that I would get a couple days, uh, off of my, a sentence every single month. And so I ended up taking advantage of that. But the, but the opportunity that I think really changed the trajectory was the trustee job of being a library. Only because I was out of general population for six to 10 hours a day, but I had access to knowledge and so I read hundreds if not thousands of books and in, in addition to my scripture study, that really helped mold me into the person that I'm today.

That's so cool. I. I, this is a, a bad comparison, but my little girl is obsessed with the movie Tangled and Rapunzel is stuck up in that tower and there's the song where I feel like it, it shows what it means to use your time wisely, where she's like, learned all of these different skills and done all of these different things while she's been locked up in the tower.

And I just admire that Sione that you, you chose to. To learn and to make the best of a very, very difficult situation. And I love in the documentary, the, the librarian that you worked with talks about asking you. Is it, what, what's the question that she asked? Is it hard to be in here? And you said, well, I am supposed to, to have this experience, I need to have this experience.

And I think that that is so admirable. Sione your, your high school girlfriend waited for you through all of this and is now your wife. Can you talk to me about what she meant to you throughout this process? She's always been a rock for me. When we were in high school, she was on seminary council. You know, she always had mentioned to me that.

She always wanted to marry a return missionary, and she was there through thick and thin. She obviously wrote me every single week while I was on my mission. And then I only got two visits while I was locked up every week. One was my parents, uh, and then one was my girlfriend, who was now my wife at the time, and she was my, my spiritual strength, my foundation, and I'm so grateful for every, every single minute to today.

One of the things that we did very uniquely. We read together and made sure that we stayed on pace with our scripture studies together, but then also every Sunday we would fast and it just gave me the strength that I needed to carry on. It's just such a, such a very difficult situation, and so, I mean, I was just so blessed to have her by my side.

I don't know if I could have done it without her and my parents. She seems so awesome, so I'm glad that that one worked out. The hard did not end there for you. Sione you you hadn't played football because of these unforeseen unfortunate circumstances for four years by the time your sentence was over. But you still ended up, you went to, is it a junior college in California?

I did. I ended up going to Utah. So during the time I was locked up, the head football coach in Utah, his name was Ron McBride at the time, he and I had a really good relationship. Obviously I wasn't able to go back to BYU, so he would visit me periodically, uh, when I was locked up, and then upon my release.

That's where I transferred. So I was at Utah for about a year. One of the requirements were is that I needed to get a 3.0. I earned a 3.8 GPA, I was competing for the starting spot. And then a couple weeks before the first game in 2002, we were going to Michigan. I found out that I was excelled and kicked off the team.

And so I realized that even though I had been forgiven in in the eyes of the Lord, the outside world wasn't as kind. And so to your point, my wife and I moved to Los Angeles. I went to a junior college called El Camino. Had a great year. Uh, got re recruited and then uh, signed a letter of intent to go to Texas Tech University.

Okay. Really quickly before we move on to how you did at Texas Tech, I, as I was preparing this, I thought, man, this would be so frustrating because what happens at Utah happens at Utah. BYU has already said they wouldn't take you. Like you, you initially signed the letter of intent. How did you, how did you reconcile that?

Because I feel like that would be so hard. It was extremely hard. BYUI knew I had a conversation with them and, and obviously I accepted that Utah was extremely difficult only because, you know, blood, sweat and tears. I had to pay for my first year of school and, you know, my dad making no more than $42,000 a year.

We had to scrap, you know, I had to find a second job balance all my football workouts. And so it was extremely disheartening when I found that out. And the hard thing was, is. I didn't even find out in person. I didn't find out via a letter. I had to find out on sports radio. And so I called my wife up and, you know, at that time there wasn't much social media and there was just a lot of phone calls coming in and my parents were like, hold on, you know, I thought we had made amends.

I thought you were on your, your pathway to redemption. And uh, as I'd mentioned, you know, the outside world wasn't as kind. And so it was extremely discouraging. That would be so, so hard. But you, you ended up, like we said at Texas Tech and you crushed it there. You played amazing and you were playing defense there.

Is that right? Yeah, I started there as a running back. You know, obviously I'd played running back my entire life. They had a head coach. His name was Mike Leach. Actually a member of the church, uh, was, was in my ward and he was a great guy. There was another coach there named Robert and I, and so he had ties locally and that's why I ended up, ended up there.

Okay. I didn't have the career that I had dreamed of. The first two games I started running back. I had four carries. I was essentially on one side. You had a guy named Danny Am Dolan. On the other side, you had another guy named Wes Walker. Both of them had phenomenal NFL careers L and so you know, the offense was designed around just passing the ball.

And so I was essentially like a six line. I did switch to defense, just an opportunity for me to, to, you know, get in the game. And, you know, I played linebacker in defensive end two positions that I didn't play in high school, but I didn't have the career that I, that I had dreamed of, but I was grateful, right?

Four years removed, five years removed from, you know, not playing. Being in Lubbock, Texas with my wife and my first born destiny. It was just a phenomenal experience to just have school paid for playing in the Big 12 and uh, just have an opportunity to find my way back. It was, it was great. And then you made a decision to transfer to Weber State.

Talk to me, talk to me a little bit about that decision. For sure. Lemme take a step back really quickly 'cause there was an experience in Lubbock that really changed, changed mine and my wife's perspective. So while I was, uh, playing football, I had the opportunity, or my wife and I had the opportunity to teach what we call at the time gospel principles, right?

They used to have gospel doctrine and gospel principles class. And uh, after this one particular gospel principles class, one of the sisters walked up and she said something that always terrified me and she said, Hey, brother Hali, I Googled your name. I looked at my wife and I'm like, oh no. And she said, there's a kid in Salt Lake City that has the same name as you, and he's a complete thug.

And he did things that you know, I would've never imagined you doing. And she said, do you know that kid? I looked at my wife and I looked back and I just told her, no, I don't know that kid. And she said, oh, I didn't think so. I would've never thought, and, and the reason why I bring that experience up is because.

We had realized that we were living our life in such a way where no one would ever question or think that we, that I had ever made a decision like that in my past. And so it was a full circle moment where I realized that the atonement was so real, and that when, you know, we go all in, right? And we turn our lives around, we don't look back.

And so that was, uh, the, the culminating experience that we had in Lubbock, Texas, that, that was great. Now going to Weaver State. So my coach at Utah that had visited me and, uh, we both were abruptly lost the opportunity to play for and coach each other, received the, a job at Weaver State. And so I had already graduated with honors and I decided that I wanted to, you know, make my way back home to Utah to play for Coach McBride at Weber State.

Okay, so you get to Weber State, you are gonna play running back, which you're excited about, the chance to play the position that you'd always loved, and then one day you have a stroke and your football career is over. I will be honest with you, Sione, and say that I feel like if it were me, I would just honestly kind of feel like Job at that point.

I'd be so discouraged. But you said that you and your wife only felt sorry for yourself for about three days, and then you picked yourself up and dusted yourselves off. How have you been able to do that? It wasn't easy, right? I mean, I felt like I hit rock bottom three times had I come home early for my mission, got kicked outta Utah, and then right when we think that things are going smoothly and you know, we have an opportunity to get back on track on my football career.

I have a stroke and I go blind in my left eye, about 90% blind. It was so hard. I think my wife and I just kept wondering and pleading with the Lord, like, when is this going to end? And after about three days, we had our two oldest at the time, destiny and Statin were sitting in Ogden, Utah. I'm like, you know what?

I gotta dust myself off. I, I gotta figure this out. I gotta provide for my family. And so we just carried on, right? We knew that football was no longer in the books. It was a vehicle that helped me get my education and uh, to get us to LA to, to Lubbock, Texas, and now to Ogden, Utah. And now we just needed to figure out what the Lord had in store, store for us next.

So talk to me about what you did next. You have had a, a successful career in the years since, but you've kind of had to start at square one, it sounds like. So, so tell us a little bit about where life has taken you from there, une and then I, I have a question about an interview, a job interview you've mentioned previously.

Yeah, so I was trying to find odd end jobs. It was hard, right? Because I'm a first degree felon, and so finding jobs in the market was extremely difficult. And then finally I found a career in sales. It was an investment education, uh, sales. They, they turned a blind eye to, you know, maybe things that you've done in the past.

And I loved it. Uh, I loved it because people viewed you for the production and the revenue that you brought in and not so much about who you were in the past. And so I was able to do fairly well for about three years in that industry. And, and then, uh, you know, my wife and I, uh, just had a growing family and we were looking for some changes.

So at, at that point. So you end up in a job interview with Adobe and they said to you at the end of the interview, we have hundreds of applicants. Can you tell us why we should hire you instead of someone else? Can you tell me about what you said in response? 'cause I think, think this is so cool. Yeah.

Well, first of all, if anyone's listening, I would not advise you. You starter or say this in any of your job interviews. I had an epiphany, right? I knew that there were a lot of people going for these entry level positions. If you live in Utah, they have a very beautiful campus at the point of the mountain.

This was before they broke ground, and so when they had asked me that question. I just said, if you're looking for something wrong, you're gonna find more wrong in me than anyone else. And they asked, well, what quite possibly could we find wrong in you? And I said, I'm a first degree film. And the room went quiet and for the next 30 minutes I told the story that I'm telling on this podcast today.

And, uh, they immediately went to executive leadership in San Jose and received approval to hire me 15 years ago. It's amazing. And so you, you have continued to have, have success professionally. You're now an advocate for convicted felons and have had some neat opportunities to try to improve. Life for other convicted felons, and you've been a powerful voice for giving people a second chance, which I think is so impressive.

Why do you think Sione that God is a God of second chances? And why should we as humans be willing to give people a second chance? I learned through this experience, God is merciful, he's kind, you know, obviously it doesn't matter how many mistakes we make, we can always make our way back to the covenant path.

And so for me, and anything that that I do, I try to pay the opportunity and the chances that I've been given forward to any box. Whether it's a second chance for convicted felons or maybe even a first chance for, you know, those that are underprivileged. And so I feel like that's the blessing that the Lord has given me in this position, and I've tried my best every single day to find opportunities to give those to others.

I wanna come back before we get to our last question, to something that you said earlier. Sione, you said that that decision to retaliate is a decision that you have regretted every day since, and yet anybody that's listened to our conversation can see that you also are not somebody who has dwelled on that mistake.

And I think that that's an important. Distinction that kind of both of those things can be true. That we can regret a past decision, but we also can move forward and allow the atonement of Jesus Christ to work in our lives. Can you talk to me about how you have done that, how you've been able to, to move forward rather than dwell on that mistake?

Yeah. I think the best secular analogy is Tom Brady, right after Tom Brady won his third Super Bowl ring in an interview, somebody asked him, which one is your favorite Super Bowl ring? And he said, the next one, right? And so to me the mindset is, is we can't look back. We learned in this past, come follow me.

You know, lot's wife, she looked back longingly and uh, you know, obviously there were some, some implications. And so. Whenever we encounter any challenges, even if we have successes, we need to look forward. And that's really been the, the biggest vehicle of success for me throughout this experience is I haven't lingered on that.

Unfortunately. There are people and friends that were part of the, the bad friends. They are still in that lifestyle and I'm not here to judge them. But what has been able to help me go beyond that is I just don't look back and I continue to try to take one step every single day moving forward. I love that.

Well, I have enjoyed this so much. Sione and I appreciate your time more than you know. My last question for you is, what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? That's a great question. It depends on the day or the week of how I would ask this question,

and this week I would answer it a little bit differently than, than, than I would've any other week. Last week I had the opportunity to attend the funeral of a nephew of mine. Uh, his name's Afu and he was, uh, battling cancer for about four years. And he spoke at a fireside at our stake in November, and I had a chance to go back and listen to his talk.

My wife recorded it. And, uh, he ended up mentioning that his entire life, all he wanted to do was serve a mission. And, uh, obviously he wasn't afforded that opportunity, but he ended up sharing an experience with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and most of us are, are familiar with that story and being thrown into the fiery furnace.

And obviously the King Nebuchadnezzar was just having, or wanting them to profess that they didn't worship this God. And there was this one phrase that they ended up saying, and that was, but if not. And, uh, at the funeral, elder Checketts ended up focusing on that one phrase, right? I'm all in and I trust in the Lord that he's gonna deliver me from any challenges that I might encounter in this life.

But if not, I still trust that all will be well. And, um, that's what it means to me. To be all in in this gospel of Jesus Christ is that if we trust in him, we know and we consecrate ourselves that he will deliver us from that fire. But if not, I have. I have trust and love that I'll be Well. Thank you so much.

Sione you're awesome. Thank you very much, Morgan, for having me. This has been a great experience.

We are so grateful to Sione Havili for joining us on this week's episode. As always, a big thanks to Derek Campbell of Mix at six Studios for his help with this episode, and thank you so much for listening. We'll look forward to being with you again next week.