-First, during my second or third week here, my brother received his mission call for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (For those that aren't familiar with this, they don't get to choose where they go, and they go to teach the gospel for 2 years.) I really wanted to listen through the phone while he read where he was to go! Because of the 6 hour time difference between Idaho and Ghana, I set an alarm at 2 am to wake up and call my family. My mom put me on speaker phone and Zach started to read his letter. Crazily enough, he got called to Ghana!! What are the chances?! My friends here with me knew I would be talking to my family during the night and were excited to hear where he was going too. The next morning when I told them all, they were all so excited for him! Africa is amazing and the people are the best. I can't wait for him.
-Second experience happened during one of our usual out reach days. I had realized that I was getting a lot of pictures with the children, because I'm more comfortable getting pictures with them than adults. I told my friend that I wanted to get more pictures with adults so that people would know that I really actually am working here too! As we were working together, she suddenly said, "Oh! I need to be taking pictures of you while you're working!". So she snapped a few random pictures of me with patients and then posted them on Facebook that night. Later that week, a friend texted me asking if the man in this picture I was tagged in was George, a blind man. I wasn't sure of the man's name, but I definitely knew he was blind. Turns out that this man was my friend's convert from his mission 1 year earlier. What are the chances. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
-Third and last, happened just this week. While working at the visual acuity testing station in Cape Coast, a girl came through and I noticed the wristband she was wearing. It said "Stand for Truth and Righteousness-Latter Day Saints". After I tested her eyes and she got up to leave, I pointed to her wristband and told her I liked it. She smiled really big once she realized what I meant. She asked if I was a member and when I told her YES! she pointed to about 8 others around her and said, "so are all of us!!". She was with her family and cousins who are all members of the church. I talked to them for quite a bit, and then asked if they knew my friend (who I met at BYU this year) since he is from Cape Coast. They said he is their cousin?! What are the chances.
So, as you can tell, this week I learned more of why I am here. I know the Lord places us in certain places for specific reasons. It's amazing.
On to the week's experiences. My 5th week here was hard. There are two different clinics that the 12 of us BYU students get split into. We're assigned by Unite for Sight to these groups. One of the groups is very efficient and working with them is more desirable for all of us. I only had the chance to work with this group 2 out of the 6 weeks, leaving me with the less efficient group for 4 weeks. It has been fine, but week 5 was very difficult. We were working in the "zango", which is basically the ghetto. All of the patients here were very rude to us. Every time I tried collecting their money to give them their glasses and medication, they would ask me to pay for them and try to guilt trip me. Most of my time here, people have been very respectful of prices and such. The cost of glasses and medications is very much reduced, but the people in the zango weren't having it. They were rude about it and after about 2 hours of this, I had to take a step away. 4 days in a row, work was like this, on top of being with the less efficient clinic, making things difficult. To add to it, we blew a tire driving home one of these days. The car sounded like it was going to explode! Turns out that Ghanaians are very quick tire fixers! We made the best of it and made a pretty funny video on the side of the road. Maybe one day you will be lucky enough to see it. Luckily all of us BYU students are really close and were able to help each other through the struggles. From this I learned how mentally strong I can be when things get really tough. (I owe thanks to all my sports coaches for making me mentally strong in previous years!) Luckily we finished up this difficult week with a short day in a beautiful village. I was able to meet so many little kids and play soccer and frisbee with them, despite the pouring rain. It was so fun to be soaking wet, but not care because I got to be playing with so many beautiful children. 
-Evance, a 12 year old boy became one of my good friends this week. He was just passing by where we were working and stopped at the sight of white people. At this point, we were closing up for the day so I was able to talk to him. We talked until I left that day. It was another sad departure. I hate leaving these little friends. Miraculously, the next day as he was walking home from school, he saw us again, even though we were in a completely different part of the town! He came in and I was so happy to see him. This isn't the first time this type of thing happened during weeks 5 and 6.
-Florence, a 9 year old girl and I met on my second working day in Ghana. She was such a cute girl and begged and begged me to bring her to my house in America. She kept asking me if I would be back and telling her no was really hard, as it always is with every kid I ever meet here. Unknowingly to me, we went to the exact same place this week. 6 weeks later. As I was working, I heard someone calling me. I saw little Florence peaking her head through a fence. I was so happy to see her! I went over to her and asked if she remembered me and with the biggest smile she said, "Yes!! You said you weren't coming back?!". I told her to come around the fence and then I was able to be reunited with her and her little friends for the rest of the day. So much happiness.
-I don't think I've written about my favorite baby here, but he's a 4 year old named Nana that I met when I went to primary at church. He sat on my lap all of the first Sunday we met, and then always pouted when I left church every week. Throughout the weeks, my love grew for this little boy so much. He's such a sweet but crazy little boy. On my last Sunday this past week, I had a hard time saying bye to him. As I left big alligator tears rolled down his cheeks. That night, we all were invited to dinner at a family's house from the ward. When I walked in the door to their house, I immediately had a child hanging on my neck. The house was somewhat dim and so I couldn't tell who it was at first, but once I realized it was Nana, my heart felt a happiness that I'm not sure I've ever felt. Turns out, that the mom of the family we were eating dinner with, is Nana's aunt and they are raising him so he can grow up in the church! I was able to play with him all night. I think he liked me even more when I kept giving him my chicken bones that I wasn't going to eat. So fun. His uncle walked by as I was holding him and said, "Nana, don't cry when she leaves this time ok?". My heart melted yet again. I feel a special love for him.
-The dinner at this families house was so great. We've gotten really close to their family (the Ankrahs) throughout our time here so getting to go to their house made us all really excited! We made our way through the pouring rain (rainy season is great) on tro tros (public van/busses) for some time and ended up at their house which is so beautiful! We were warmly welcomed with so much delicious rice! The Ankrah's are a power couple. Their family is amazing. An embarrassing thing happened while I was there. I can't say no to children jumping all over me, and so I had 3 kids on my lap riding the "moto" (motorcycle). This is a common game that I play with them and so I didn't even think about what type of chair I was sitting in. Every where I've been, in all of Ghana, except in the church, there are only plastic chairs. So, the "moto" is driving along you know, and suddenly the plastic chair exploded beneath us! Just imagine, a smashed chair with me on top of it, with 3 kids on top of me, in a member's house. It was so funny and not a big problem, only left a few bruises :)
-Saturday, we all took our last excursion to the Botanical Gardens and the ocean! I had so much fun swimming in the ocean after being hot and sweaty for so long. I can only imagine how funny it looked with 30 Ghanaian men and 5 American girls jumping the waves. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing or what, but the men loved to come and pick us up in their arms, and lift us above the waves as the washes crashed on them. It was so funny. There was so much happiness and laughter as we were swimming, until a wave brought in too much garbage for us to stand. Other than that it was an amazing day. Such a good finish to a hard week!
-Yesterday, we had a YSA (young single adults in the church) activity with people from the ward. They wanted to throw a party for us since we were leaving. It was so fun dancing, eating and singing with them. They all ask me when I'm getting married, and when I don't have an answer they're all really confused. It's great. It's amazing how the gospel is the same all over the world.
As I prepare to leave Africa within the next 2 days, I have really been pondering all that I've been taught mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. In my next post, I'll wrap up all those feelings. :) I've had an amazing experience serving the people in Africa. I've been able to fulfill one of my biggest dreams coming here.
