GHANA

The power of prayer is real people. REAL. I have never prayed with so much faith and conviction in my life than when I felt like I needed a real miracle for my Visa to find my house. Along with my fellow Ghana goers and my mom and dad, we prayed hard for that Visa to come by Saturday, if it be His will. And gosh am I grateful that His plan lined up with my plan to leave on Sunday morning because sure enough my Visa came in the mail today. I know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers and is mindful of each and every one of us and for that I am very grateful. I cannot even believe that the time has come for me to be embarking on this journey. It doesn't seem real yet with my bag packed, Visa in hand, and excitement level through the roof it is definitely time to embark on this journey. As I am going to be hopping on that plane to Accra from Washington D.C. in less than 48 hours I feel ever grateful for this amazing world. For the opportunity I have to hop on a thing such as an airplane and travel to the other side of the world. Its CRAZY the technology we have these days but it is so cool. I honestly feel like I have no idea how to do research and no idea how I am going to produce a legit anthropological study but Im sure that is natural to be doubting myself and all that I have learned since my departure date is so close. I thought I would be more nervous than I am but I am just so excited. I know I can do it and I am as prepared as I will ever be so the time is at hand! Thank you to every one who has helped me to make it to this point, especially you Mom and Dad. I couldn't have done any of this without your love and support. You da best!

                                             Well, WISH ME LUCK!!!! Ghana or Bust!!!!

not quite according to plan...

As of right now my Visa is missing and my returning flight from Ghana has been cancelled. I just took my first dose of malaria pills and feel extremely nauseous. Ever since the moment I read those words Ghana Field Study I knew this would be quite the adventure and it has already started. I am supposed to hop on a plane on my way to Ghana Sunday morning at 9:30, it is Thursday morning and I have been on the phone with the airline and the Ghana Embassy for about 6 hours cumulatively over the last 24 hours. Not to mention the countless phone calls over the past few weeks trying to figure all this out. It is at the point where I feel like I have done all I can and it is time to turn it over to the Lord. If I am supposed to be on that plane on Sunday morning, I know that I will be. My Visa will come. And I don't return until the end of July so that flight has time to be figured out. I am already starting to gain a testimony of adaptability. I have always had the ability to adapt to circumstances very well but I have also never experienced something this big. I have never been this close to leaving the country and my friends and family for 3 months. I have never felt more prepared for something in my life and though some things seem to be falling apart and not working the way I would like them to I am hopeful. I am hopeful and I know that God knows who I am. He knows my name and He knows that I am learning as I go. I know that He loves me and that He wants me to succeed. So I will make it to Ghana. Whether it be this Sunday or a week from now when I have gotten a new Passport and Visa, I will make it to Ghana and I will be able to do my research and I will fulfill my responsibilities there. Elder Busche said that "in your life there have to be challenges, they will either bring you closer to God and therefore make you stronger, or they can destroy you. But you make the decision of which road you take". Now this is no major trial. This is no huge challenge, just a mere bump in the road but boy have I been praying hard and trying to exercise my faith through this little challenge. Becoming aware of my Heavenly Father and His plan in my life has been the most amazing experience that I have had throughout these past months. God knows better than me what I need. If I listen to His suggestions then I believe that everything will fall into its place. Little challenges are what build us up in this life. We are given even the smallest of challenges to help us become strengthened to eventually realize our full potential. I always feel vulnerable for a moment and I may shed some tears in despair after exhausting all my resources has proved unfruitful, but that moment is where I have learned to exercise the most faith. After we have done all we can, we must turn our hearts over to the Lord and trust that He has a plan for us.
      My mom just came in and told me that I have shot myself in the foot claiming my ability to be adaptable in my last post. I am adapting, it just takes me a minute to figure things out. I guess its like Elder Oaks said in his talk 'Mountains to Climb', if you ask Heavenly Father for trials, he will give them to you. My mom thinks this is just a trial of my faith as if He was like, "okay prove it". I really hope so because one, it would show that He has a sense of humor and two, I would love to board a plane on Sunday morning with that Visa in my hand. I'm going to work so hard to be ready for anything that is thrown at me. I can do it. Well, if you are reading this, PRAY FOR ME!! I need that Visa, at least I think I do. We will see what the Lord has in store.

GONE

       My Erica is set apart. How weird that feels to not be able to call her. I never knew how close I could grow to a person in just a few short years. Maddie and I have been best friends since we were 14 so college was just even better being able to live together and play all the days, but Erica and Carley have been such a joy and such a strength in my life that it feels strange to be without them all at the same time. It was okay when Maddie left because I still had my other comforts. Then Carly Walker left and they were still there, now Erin is engaged, KP is off to Alabama with the hubs, who knows where Janessa will be in the fall, Danielle is all growed up, the pals I went to high school with are all in Idaho...not me. I'm not going on a mission. I'm not planning a wedding or a future career since I've graduated and moved on from Provo, yes I am going on this adventure and yes I am stoked out of my mind...but no, I have not one clue what I am going to do when I return. It will be WEIRD. My college family is slowly but surely dispersing onto different things. Everyone is taking the path that they were supposed to be on and they are being led to their future. I know that I am on the right path for me as well but man it is so strange to think how we have all been together just playing and learning and growing for the past 3 years and now it is time to spread our wings and move onto our new lives. We will be learning how to depend on other people rather than just our crew, we will be learning how to adapt and progress in completely different ways...not that we haven't all been doing that all along but when your support system shifts and changes, the whole dynamic is just different and you have to adapt and change to those new circumstances. One thing that I know I have been prepared for through these last few months especially is adaptability. There are going to be so many days in the field where events that I did not anticipate come up and things I did not forsee change the course of the day, I know that I will be ready for those because I am a very adaptable person and that attribute has been tested and nurtured lately and I don't mean to brag but I think I have gotten very good at it. I have been able to be happy in times when I thought my world would be crushed and I have risen out of trials that could have been crippling. It is in these times when we must choose. Choose to be happy. Choose to be strong. Choose to keep taking those steps every single day. I feel like these blog posts are all just ONE LONG BROKEN RECORD, and for that I apologize but all that I have learned this semester has been fairly comprehensive and it shows in my thoughts and attitudes.
        I do not think I can even fathom the experience I have in store for me. I know it will be great. I know I will learn and grow a lot. But I wonder just how much it will change me. Will my sense of humor change? Will I be able to have the attitude in real life that I have in these blog posts, one that is optimistic and positive? Will I be able to remember why I am doing this research so I can make it really count? I hope so. I hope that I can take everything that I have learned so far and apply it to my every day. I want this experience to be everything that I ever thought it could be and more and I know it will be as long as I have the right attitude. As long as I keep looking forward. I am heading to Ghana in less than a week and it feels like a sort of mission. Thinking about Erica entering the MTC tomorrow terrifies me. I admire her bravery and her faith. Maddie's and Carley's too. Russia, Latvia, and Germany are definitely not anywhere near where these 3 thought they would end up and here I am going to a place for 3 months, not 18, where I have chosen. I chose this and I am going to ROCK IT! I already know that I am going to look back at the end of each day with gratitude in my heart for the blessings I have received and August is already approaching way too rapidly. But with that will come new friends, new experiences, and new joys to be had. I will come back from Ghana as a woman with more. more compassion, more self-worth, more knowledge, more life, more faith, and more love. And that will be an accomplishment in and of itself.

The time has come

The time is nearly gone, I had better be prepared and I had better be ready to do this or I am in for a real treat. Every day when I wake up I feel this tug that has brought me toward Ghana growing stronger and stronger. I am drawn to this place and I am so excited to go explore it. That said, I am also terrified. Terrified because I have never gone anywhere on my own (college is not the same, i still had best friends and siblings and a cell phone to call my mom...familiarity has never felt like such a luxury as I will not know the meaning of the word for awhile here soon). Terrified because I already love these people so much and I'm afraid I will be coming home with a broken heart at the end of this, having to leave Ghana and come back to the United States. Yes I will be thrilled to see my family but my 3 best friends will have embarked on their missions. Maddie flies away to Latvia today, Erica goes into the MTC in 9 short days, Carley leaves right as I get home to see the Germans. And I will come back to the same Provo but I will be so different. My best friends, the family that I have known for the past 3 years will not be here to be with me always and to share every thing with. I am scared for that return. I am not worried in any way about making new friends though my bests will certainly never be replaced, but I know that I will learn how to talk to people and build relationships so well in Ghana since it will be essential to my research so I am not worried about that return, but the change is always a little scary, though exciting, to anticipate. I already feel like I cannot get my thoughts out right in this post. My brain is all over the place. I blame finals. And all the impending change. Not that this year hasn't been full of change after change, because it has. But these are HUGE! I am so grateful for the change though. I have grown in ways I did not think were possible. I have thought thoughts that were foreign and unknown. I have sulked, I have rejoiced, and throughout all this, I have never stopped feeling SO GOOD about this decision. Nothing has ever been so plain. I know that I am supposed to be in Ghana for these three months. Everything in my life so far, especially in the past year, has prepared me for this and as I recognize more events which influenced this decision or prepared me for some hardships, I cannot help but thank my Heavenly Father for His guidance and preparation. I couldn't have done it without Him.

Journal #33: Lets Go!!

     Its getting to that point. Where it is hard to concentrate on school with anything that doesn't relate to Africa. Even those things that do relate become hard because it is so close that I can hardly even believe I am actually doing this. I want this to work. I want to come back and write my senior thesis which such confidence and sure results that I can say that I worked as hard as I could and that I did all that I could. I want to learn about these peoples lives. I want to become one of them in their culture. I want to better understand the world around me. I want to better understand God's plan for me, and for every person that I meet. I just want to go. I am no Nephi  but the Lord has placed this in my path and I am ready to GO and DO! I feel so redundant in all my posts because though I have changed a tremendous amount this semester, it is hard to convey my feelings and thoughts on subjects pertaining to Ghana and my field study three times a week. Honestly, try writing about the same thing every other day, and bringing variety into it, it is hard. So I apologize to those of you reading this blog who may feel like I say the same things over and over again, that's what I feel like.
     I've been working on a project for my Anthropology of Development project that is basically a fake development project though we have to write out a proposal as if it is really going to happen. The setting is in Apamea, Syria and let me tell you, it is NOT easy to find adequate information enough to write up this proposal. One thing I have learned though that I think is very valuable is finding information in unexpected places. Countless hours of research have led me to random sources but those unexpected places have yielded the best results. That is one thing that I am very excited about. I can't wait for those days where it seems that nothing is working out but I am led to a random source that proves to have essential information for the success of my project. It is going to be so exciting to look back on those opportunities and recognize how they came about. I feel like it will be like looking back at the end of the day and recognizing the tender mercies from the Lord that we have experienced. Those unexpected blessings that have come along the way. Those will make it all worth it.
     I was talking to Andrew yesterday and he was just giving me some advice about Ghana. The biggest thing he said that I will remember is that it is okay to be sad sometimes. It is okay to feel defeated and to wonder what you are doing out there. I will have those days, I am only human so it is inevitable. The thing that will bring me out of those moods is to remember why I am out there.My purpose is clear and my research is ready. Not to count in the fact that I have never done research, by myself nonetheless. But I am confident that I will be able to do it and I will be able to find success. Im ready to go. Soon, so soon!

Journal #33: I'll Stand By You

     I want to be able to use this phrase. To let the people who help me with my research know that I will stand by them. That I will take the information I receive from observing their doctor-patient interactions and from interviewing them and analyze it as best as I can in order to present my research accurately. That I will be their friend. That I will strive every day to understand their culture and their minds. That I will stay true to myself and to my research. That even when the nights get lonely or when I feel like I do not want to go on I will remember the reason I am there. I am there to learn. To grow. To build relationships with these beautiful people. To stand by them as one child of God to another. It is so easy to get caught up in life but I think i will be able to feel sparks of truth ignite within my soul every day if I let that happen. The only way to do that is to let those relationships blossom. I want to learn how to build upon them day by day through trust and love.
     I have been thinking about collecting data and how that is going to be, really I have no idea. I have never really done it before. Participant Observation is different, I feel like I am doing that all day, every day. I love people watching. One reason anthropology is perfect for me. Are the people I interview and observe going to have walls put up? What if they are wearing a mask (figuratively) that hides their true thoughts and feelings? The scary thing about this research is that I will have no idea. I have to simply trust the information that I am given and I have to use it assuming that the people are being true to themselves and true to me. What does that really mean though? I think there are a lot of people in this world who could not answer that question. They are hidden behind so many layers of deceit, fear, sadness, etc...and they put up this facade so much so that they do not even know how to identify their true self. I am sure I even have my moments. While I am learning about the world around me, I am also learning about myself every day. I just thought about the movie Runaway Bride when Julia Roberts' character doesn't know what kind of eggs she likes. She just chose to like the same kinds of eggs that her significant other fancied at the time because she did not know which choice to make. That can be true to so many different aspects of our lives. We don't know which choice to make so we just go with whatever is convenient. I don't want my research to turn into data collection because of convenience. I want to take this experience as a challenge and a struggle, using it to find my true self while I help others to do so as well. It will take time. It will take me breaking down those walls with myself and with others so as to get the truest data that I can. The word 'nokware' means to be true in Twi. I want to be able to use that word and know that I have been true to myself in how I have sought out and collected data and I want the people I work with to be able to say the same of the interactions they've had with the doctors as well as their interactions with me. I just want to be able to stand by the people and my research in the end and say that I did my best and I kept the truth as best as I could.

Journal #32: Field Studies

     My third roommate just opened up her mission call. THANK GOODNESS I am going to  Africa or else I would feel very abandoned and alone here in Provo with my girls on missions. Maddie, heading to Latvia any day now, Erica goes into the MTC and then to Russia just 5 days before I leave, and Carley is entering the MTC on August 8 to go to the Alpine Germany mission. A Latvian, Russian, and German... I feel like the odd ball out but boy do I love Africa. I have been thinking a lot about the Field Studies program this week and how grateful I am for it. Without it I would not be able to do the research I am doing. I would not be able to go where I am going. I would not be able to live out this dream. I recently heard that the Kennedy Center is doing away with Field Studies. I do not know all the reasons behind this but I do know that it is a very unfortunate thing. It makes me sad to think that I might not have had the opportunity to do this work. Field Studies is an amazing program that allows students to facilitate their own research and to show themselves how powerful and innovative they can be. I never thought my brain had the capacity to think the things it thinks and to come up with the ideas that it does and it is because of this opportunity that I have been able to learn SO much. Granted, I would have been doing ethnographic research whether or not it was through Field Studies because of my major but I cannot imagine not being able to fulfill this dream I have had since the moment I read 'Ghana' on the list. It is an amazing opportunity. One that allows me to build my own research, one that gives me the opportunity to get my name in the academic community when I publish my research in journals and such. Of course, those are big wishes and fulfillment's but think about how that will look on graduate school applications as opposed to just piggybacking off of a professors research where my name get left behind behind the acknowledgments of the professor, the department, and the university. I may have the wrong idea about how the research would be if Field Studies were not available...which they wont be in the near future...but I guess I am just very grateful that I have been given the opportunity to do this.
     In presenting my research today I realized that I need to figure out how to explain my project and my project question to the people in Ghana better than I did today, especially to those who will be participating in my research because when i got nervous I felt myself stumbling over my words and rambling on endlessly. It was all relevant information but I just did not feel like I presented it in best way that I could. I am going to work on that. I also just decided to add a few interviews in the mix of my methods which I hadn't planned to do until today so I will be doing some last minute tweaks. And really the tweaks will never end.

Journal #31: You Must Do

While reading a plethora of articles today as I tried to catch up on my sources I started to think about how everyone in these research plans had to simply DO. No one on this earth could be where they were if they hadn't chosen to take the steps necessary to make it to where they are. Lawrence Corbridge, author of the "Fourth Missionary" said that "your life's greatest work is you". And ultimately is that not what this is all about? Life...its about bettering ourselves through service to others in order to make it back to our Heavenly Father; it is about experiencing, about learning, about choosing, and finding. I would not be where I am today without the work I have done and my constant efforts to be better and to DO more every single day. I am constantly striving to do more and to be more like the quote above says, but what does that mean for my research? I certainly would not be doing it if I were not trying to do more and be more for myself and my own progression, but more than that I want to learn about other people in our world and how they do more and how they choose to be more. Agency will certainly come into play in my research. The doctors and patients I observe will be making constant choices and will not know the consequence or why they are saying this and doing that, though their background lead them to where they are today. With that, our discussion about dealing with culture shock today made me think even more about the choices I will be making each day. In less than a month I will be entering a culture that is so different from what I am used to. I really only know two worlds. Roseville, California and Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I have not experienced much else. Not only am I going on an adventure on my own, away from all familiarity, family, and friends, I am going on a journey that will potentially rock my world. I am going to see and experience things that I did not expect nor will I anticipate the way this experience is going to affect and change me. So what am I going to choose? Am I going to choose to let myself get overwhelmed in wishing I was home, or wishing that my field experience was over because it is too stressful, or wishing that I could just eat a hamburger already...no. I am human, inevitably I will feel frustrated, lonely, confused, without purpose, hungry, tired, bewildered, overwhelmed, and just completely lost at times throughout this experience. BUT, the beauty of those feelings is in the opposition. I will also feel joy, gladness, full, hot, proud, full of purpose, productive, changed, etc... There is no telling what feelings my experience will facilitate. I am an open book. Waiting to be written upon. My pages are blank, I don't know what to expect, and I am ready to let this experience change me. I am ready to embrace this African culture. I am ready to face these challenges. I am willing to let Heavenly Father give me a mountain to climb and I am determined to reach the top. I am ready to suffer through the sleepless nights and the weight loss from lack of nutrients because my stomach is not used to the food. I am ready to get malaria (lets hope I don't but it would be great participant observation after all). I am ready to take bucket showers. I am ready to rely on the Lord as my comfort and my best friend when I cannot call my mom at the drop of a hat. I am ready to make this a success academically, spiritually, and emotionally. I am prepared to CHOOSE happiness and positivity. I know that I have the capacity to overcome those days where I feel lost and lonely and confused. I know that I can ultimately learn way more from this culture than they could ever learn from me and I am excited to let these people and this experience write my story this summer. It won't be anything like Rita Skeeter on Harry Potter, no twisting and turning and changing the words to fabricate gossip. This experience is going to be raw. The things I learn and the words I put on paper are going to be raw. I am going to face new challenges within the scope of my project every day that I am forced to overcome. Problem solving and quick wit are two things that I am blessed with which I know will come in handy. I know that the success of my project is up to me, but like I said in my earlier post about what success means to me...found here ... I am going to choose to make each day that success. This culture is going to change me and it is going to be hard. I am going to feel culture shock, in all of its stages. I am going to be as happy as can be and know my purpose for being there. And ultimately, I am going to bear my name, the name of BYU and the name of one of God's children proudly.