I Will Be Returning to BYU…Come December.

14 July 2013

One day I will live in London, the place where the world comes full circle. I guarantee that there is at least one person from every single country in the world living in London. Every weekend I look forward to attending church at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints, also known as the Mormon church. It is a joy and a blessing in my life to start of my week on such a high note. Being in Europe has made my love and desire to engage in the many different activities that my church offers increase more than I ever thought was possible. For those of you who are unaware the Mormon church is a worldwide church, so nearly everywhere I go I can find a church building to attend. Today I attended church from 1-4 at the Hyde Park Chapel in downtown London. Once again I was hit with small instances of how small the world is. Sitting in Sunday School, I was surrounded by dozens of young adults roughly around my age from all around the world… The young woman who gave the lesson was from Australia, the girl who gave the prayer was from somewhere in Africa, the boy who sat next to me was from Portugal, and the girl who led the music was from Russia… There were numerous others that I encountered with who were from other areas in the world and I felt so grateful to be able to meet them and understand that the world’s boundaries are a lot closer than I thought. My perspective has increased so much as I have been exposed to so many different cultures and I am so grateful for that. One day I will live in London for an extended period of time where I can truly come to understand the spirit of the city. I know that it is there because I get small glimpses of it here and there, but I want to see the full picture.

My future flat in Greater London.

Mother, I am being serious when I say I am going to come back and live in London…and I promise it is not because I am tired of the United States, it is just because London is a city that has something to to teach everyday. I won’t live here for a long time, I just want to come for a bit to really experience it. I feel the same way about Paris…so I am going to have to see where an opportunity arises for me to go to one of these two grand places…or wait for two opportunities to do both.

Or maybe this one?

Once again Brother and Sister White were are gracious hosts for the weekend. I absolutely love that I can message them on short notice and they are more than eager to have us over to stay with them in London. They are the perfect example to me of selflessness and love. I enjoy being in there home and spending such time with incredible people. Thank you.

Myself along with Brother and Sister White, two absolutely incredible people.

As I sit on the bus sweating to death but excited to head back to gorgeous Cambridge from stunning London, I figure that it is a good time to reveal what I have been scheming and planning over the past 3 weeks. Remember I went to Portugal with Kailey and Stephanie for the week break between Oxford and Cambridge. That was so wonderful… While I was having a fabulous time lounging on the beach and exploring the rich history and culture of Portugal, an idea was forming into my head about something I had discovered last year at BYU. Somehow in my act of exploring anything and everything there is to do on campus, I stumbled upon the Whitmore Center of Global Management and equally stumbled upon several programs to study at International Business Schools with BYU funding and for BYU credit. That day I grabbed a flyer for each of the Business schools: Hong Kong, Peru, Brazil, France, Portugal, and Germany and called home telling my mother that soon I was going to either study in Hong Kong or Peru. The reason why I chose those two is obvious…either I learn to speak Mandarin, or I get to hike Machu Pichu…that sounds like a win-win to me! My dear parents are so used to me calling home with wild ideas about internships, traveling, studying internationally, and creating new ventures, that I am sure that call was no surprise to them.

Anyways fast forward to when I was backpacking Europe with Ellie and Steven, as we traveled through Germany and France I had those flyers in the back of my mind. Upon being in Paris, my favorite city of ALL TIME (London, Budapest, and Rome rank up there quite close as well) I fell in love with the city. You have heard me rant a million times about how much I love it and about how I promise myself I am going to go back…meaning not as a visitor, but as a student or intern… Looking further into the opportunity to study in France, I realized that the business school is not in Paris but is several miles away. Thinking about if I would like to do it or not I kept going back to the thought that it was not in Paris. Although I would get to learn French, I would miss out on the adrenaline and business hype that is associated with Paris. Realizing this, I decided that I would shoot for an internship in the business sector of Paris, allowing me to experience the culture as a local while getting international business experience in one of the best business hubs in the world. Leaving Paris was dreadful because I knew I was leaving a place with so many opportunities, hopefully opportunities that I will be able to come back for.

My backpacking days ended and I shipped myself off to Oxford via Ryanair and began one of the most intensive and deep business seminars I have ever been through (well it was technically the first seminar I have been to, but I don’t imagine many others in my future being as rigorous). Upon being filled with such analytical and innovative knowledge after two full weeks I found myself in Portugal with my friends…and I am back to where I left off. Skipping the first few days of our time in Lagos on the Algarve coast, let me begin again with our time in Lisbon. At this point we were halfway through our vacation and I was beginning to really think about the BYU opportunity to study in Portugal. Obviously the idea entertained me because I am….well, me, and I think about this kind of international and business stuff all the time. Kailey was planning on staying with Ana, the lady we stayed with in Lisbon, for the fall to interview her and write a book. When she mentioned that I would be able to stay with her and Ana during the fall I began to realize that this might actually happen. The school is called ISCTE, and it is located in downtown Lisbon. Previously I posted about taking the morning before we departed to Porto to go and visit ISCTE and speak with the international business coordinators about their business school and programs. The deadline for the application to BYU was in March and it was nearly July, but I figured that I might as well drop by the school in Lisbon and see what it was all about. The campus was beautiful and very put together, with obviously a lot of different cultural backgrounds in both the students and professors. I met with Diana, head of the International Business program and upon exchanging a few words she was head over heels trying to get me to come and study in Lisbon.

The ISCTE deadline was not until the end of the weekend, or July 1st so that evening I figured there was no harm in filling it out…and everything went downhill from there. I emailed BYU and was connected with Mary Ostraff who has been my landline for arranging everything for studying in Portugal. That first week I received on average 3 emails from her a day regarding things I would have to get done ASAP if I were to make this work. She was able to get both the Marriott School and the ISP (international study programs) deadlines waved for me so that I could submit my applications and become eligible for the full tuition scholarship they offer. She warned me that if I were to pursue this opportunity, the next few weeks would be absolutely mad…and guess what?… I decided that the madness was worth it. Just yesterday evening I bought my ticket from London to Paris (the first connection on my journey to Lisbon), making all this real…

Dear World, I AM GOING TO BE STUDYING IN PORTUGAL. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? I have been going crazy trying to arrange my class schedule, internships, changing my flight, obtaining my visa, securing accommodations, etc… While balancing 5 classes at Cambridge and planning weekend excursions with my friends. This weekend our purpose in going to London was to obtain my visa and Kailey’s citizenship card (since she is half Portuguese and will be living in Lisbon as well going to ISCTE…that is another long story), but for some frustrating reason the “visa” lady is out of the office for two weeks and their website is down. The man at the embassy promised that it would be no real difficulty obtaining a visa and that I should have it way in advance to my studies in September. For some odd reason, and despite being the uptight person that I am, I felt a lot of comfort in what he said and I am not going to worry about about obtaining my visa. If worse comes to worse and I do not obtain a visa I will just have to leave the country as the 90 day limit draws near…vacation excuse, I think so!

So there is still a lot to do and as this is a big part of my life right now. I have wanted to include it in my writings but have not up until now because I wanted to make sure it was something that was actually going to happen before I started telling all my family and friends. I am hear to tell you that come this fall I will be living and studying in Lisbon, Portugal. Semester will end mid December and I will come home to enjoy break with my family before heading back to BYU. A lot of you are probably wondering how basketball fits into all of this. Since the end off my Sophomore season I have been really evaluating what I want to do with my life. I have so many passions that sometimes I spread myself so thin trying to get everything I want to do done. Basketball has been the bread of my life the past two years and I have absolutely loved it. I have amazing teammates and spectacular coaches whom have taught me so much not only about the game of basketball, but about the game of life. I am a walk on to the team, which is a hard role to play. Trying to understand what role I played on the team is very difficult and I have battled time and time again to prove myself both on and off the court. As a walk on and as a pointguard I am in a hard position. There are four other pointguards on the team, and they are great at what they do. Being on scholarship gives them the extra incentive to go out and use their time to practice because they have to worry less about a job and getting good grades to keep an academic scholarship. I have been able to balance basketball with lots of credits, high grades, and making money with my photography business but as I add internships and international experience to the mix I realized that I was going to have to make a choice.

This is the part of my life where I usually like to run away. I want to run away as far as I can and let someone else make the decision that will cut out something I love in my life. Deciding between good and bad is easy, but deciding between good and good is actually quite hard. I hate making decisions because I want to do everything. I had been praying about which decision to make for a long time but have received no answer. Up to this point besides God, the only two people I have let in on this hard choice of mine has really been my parents. My mother reminded me that no one was going to make the decision for me, even God. I needed to use my agency to make the decision and then ask in prayer if it was the right thing to do. Once I made my decision and prayed if it was right…I knew it was. I wouldn’t of changed my basketball experience for anything in the world but it is time for me to move on. Since then everything has fallen into place. Before I left for Europe I decided that I was going to wait to obtain housing at BYU come fall, making my decision to stay in Portugal even more feasible. I will take a little bit of a hit in price to change my flight from August 27 to December, but definitely within my budget. I know applaud myself for budgeting so well my expenses thus far in Europe because I am going to have enough to make fall semester in Portugal happen. Of course living with a host family and attending school on BYU scholarship has a lot to do with it, I am very grateful for the money smarts I have been able to pick up over the course of my life.

Over the next couple of weeks I will tell more and more of the details, but I believe that is enough for now. Just now that I am incredibly excited!

When we arrived home we met up with Amira, Arwa, and several other of the girls from Cairo to break our fast with them at sundown. Once a month it is customary for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints to refrain from food or drink for 24 hours with a prayer in their heart that they wish to be answered. This usually takes place on the first Sunday of the month but because we were traveling home from Scotland last weekend, we thought it would be better to wait a week when we could dedicate ourselves 100% to our fast. It just so happens that the Muslim faith is in the beginning of Ramadan and we arranged for ourselves to meet up with the girls from Egypt when we arrived home in the evening to break our fast together. In Egypt it is customary to break your fast with dates, so that is what we did! The girls were so nice to bring us lots of traditional Egyption food that they had purchased from a Middle Eastern market they had found in Cambridge.