In Which We Sing, Knock Doors, Eat (More) Steak, & Are Gifted A Quran

Well, it's been another kinda tough week here in Collierville, Tennessee. I feel like I don't have a ton to report on this time, so I'll just have a bunch of random stories from this week. One piece of good news is that our investigator, whose husband told her she can't be baptized, has softened a little and will let her be baptized! ...After she waits a full year. So that's a good change. 

We taught our investigator about tithing, fasting, and church callings this week. We are hoping to finish all the lessons before her set baptismal date in late november, and convince her to move the date up. 

One last thing before I move onto the fun stories - on exchanges, we got chatting w this nice guy whose door we knocked on. He said he thought it was crazy to dismiss the idea of living prophets, and accepted a Book of Mormon, so that was good! That doesn't happen very often, unfortunately haha.

Okay, fun stories!

Last p day, desperate for an excuse to leave our apartment, we helped one of the priests in the ward build a Warped Wall, from American Ninja Warrior. All from scratch. He finished it later this week, and it looks good!

We had our 3rd district meeting on Tuesday. I kinda put it together last minute, (or at least the day before) but I thought it was probably our best district meeting so far. Had some good discussion and all that. Our district is pretty awesome.

We were taken out to dinner one night to tag along for the Whitaker's son's 13th birthday! He's a super cool kid. We went to Firebird Steakhouse, and there wasn't much on the menu under $20. There was a group of about ten of us. The bill was like $350, and Bro. Whitaker added an even hundred dollar tip on top of that. He does a lot of real estate in the Memphis area and does very well, living next door to Mike Conley, who just signed like a $100+ million 5 year contract for the Memphis Grizzlies or something. Anyway, seeing that kind of generosity really makes me want to get to a point in my life where I can leave hundred dollar tips.

Had dinner with another family, and the mother told me she had read my book, "Lies"! A book club in Collierville is reading it this month, so that's pretty exciting! A bunch of the ward members have been reading it and spreading the word! They've got me feeling like David Archeletta or something. 

On our way out of the apartment complex, I almost got hit by a cement truck on my bike! Just kidding, it wasn't that dramatic. They're doing construction next door, and the road is divided so one side of the road goes one way, there's a big divider w trees, etc., and then the other side of the road goes the other way. Well, this big truck hauling cement comes going down the wrong freaking side of the road. Oh well, I make eye contact w the driver, nod, and make my way along the side of the truck, expecting him to give me the 3 feet on the road *required by law.* lol nope. If anything he starts hugging the side of the road. So now my handlebars are getting really close to the bed of the truck, and my front tire is about scraping the side of the road. I slam on the breaks while this guy edges past me, rather than hit the truck or ride up on the gutter and fall into the truck. That annoyed the heck out of me, cause I kinda really hate biking, and that is without the threat of giant vehicles killing me stacked on top of my own clumsiness.

It was another hot week. Idk how to describe it, Cause it has started to feel like fall, but it is still so hot outside. There are leaves on the ground and a breeze, but we come in from biking just drenched haha. It has started to cool down a little bit, but even this week it says the temperatures go back up to 80 day by day.

Anyway, I survived that encounter, and then we went tracting in this cursed neighborhood. People would open the door before we even get to it and tell us they aren't interested. We had a cat following us around for a while, and it darted into one house of a lady telling us she wasn't interested... twice. So she had to go chase after it and throw it outside again. That was funny. We said a prayer with one lady which was interesting. Usually when people ask, hand holding is involved, but she just stuck her arm out and we put our hands in the middle like we were gonna do a team cheer haha. So that was different. 

We knocked a lot of doors this week. On one day, we spent a quick afternoon in one neighborhood, knocking 81 doors. Of those, only 19 doors opened. 16 of the people listened to us long enough for us to ask if we could share a message, and 0 of them wanted to hear us out. We had one guy let us in and give us water, which was awesome. He was a pretty cool muslim from India, and gave us an English copy of the Quran. He found a verse in there about how "God doesn't have offspring so Jesus was only a prophet, etc." We looked past the difference and asked him questions and there are a lot of similarities, honestly. We traded him his Quran for my Book of Mormon haha. So I spent the rest of the day knocking doors w my bible and the Quran which was kinda fun haha.

I read some of the Quran when we got back that night, and there were some cool thoughts and good ideas, and it's clear that anyone who claims they aren't God fearing, peaceful people, hasn't read what they believe. (And for that matter, neither have the people who are the reason for people thinking they aren't peaceful people!) While I think there are great concepts in there to follow, I could tell that the spirit that I'm used to feeling when I read the scriptures isn't there. I'm thankful for the Holy Ghost that helps us recognize truth and that testifies of Christ.

On Sunday, I spoke in church! I didn't quite take up the full 15 minutes alotted to me, but I thought I did pretty dang good, not to toot my own horn or anything. But since I've been focused on preparing for that all week, I'm once again left today with not much planned for our district meeting tomorrow. Dang. 

And finally, after church yesterday, we got a ride up with the missionaries from Holly Springs to another church building, where we practiced for the musical fireside for a few hours, had dinner, and then performed! We had invited like 6 or 7 people to this, and only Anette came. But I think she enjoyed it, so that was good. Still disappointing to not see anyone else, there. They missed out, cause it was awesome. 

Another missionary said that the gift of tongues must apply to music, too, cause it's the only thing that could have made us sound good haha. I thought that was funny and probably true! Cause I am not a singer at allllllll but we sounded good! There were about 200 people there, so not as many people as there were chairs set up (ouch!) but everyone seemed to enjoy it. We get to do it again this weekend further into Memphis!


Well, this is the last P Day of the transfer! This Saturday, we will get an email telling us transfer news--whether we are staying here in Collierville, or where we are going and with whom. If I stay one more transfer, that would be a full 6 months in Collierville, which I would really love! (Though I might love it more if there was more traction and progress happening.) After the email on Saturday, we have Sunday to get packed, and then early Monday morning we meet at the church building in Memphis. So it is quick! I'd love one more transfer here, but we will see!

I hope you all have a fantastic week! 
Elder Dahl

oliver.dahl@myldsmail.net

905 Kierre Dr., North Little Rock, AR 72116
(Different address in case I get transferred, so letters go to the mission office and can be forwarded, rather than sent somewhere I am not anymore)