The Hundredth Sunday!

​The longer I look at the word "hundredth," the less it seems like a real word. Doesn't it look made up? That's right, though... isn't it?


Whether it is a word after all or not, there's definitely something that seems imaginary about this being my 100th week!

This last Tuesday was probably one of the fastest of all the days in my mission. We had 3 [admittedly too long] lessons, plus some time for contacting, reporting, and all that. But by the time 7 o'clock rolled around and our 3rd lesson was about to begin, it felt like 3 in the afternoon. All three lessons were really good, though. We are getting somewhere! It's so awesome to see things starting to click in people's minds and hearts.

There wasn't anything too exciting through most of the week, so I'll just run through some highlights.

- On Wednesday, a new member named Ricky took us to a Chinese buffet. They're usually at least decent, right? This one was pretty good, though! In West Memphis, AR of all places!

- My fortune cookie was "any day above ground is a good day," which, seeing that the euphemism for a missionary going home is "dying," or being "killed off," I thought was pretty appropriate haha.

- We had Book of Mormon class that night, which was good. The sisters' and their new missionary got back in time for that, too. So now they're in a trio! I guess President must think that if a new missionary can make in West Memphis, they can make it anywhere!

- We helped set up a yard sale

- I gave a Book of Mormon to a Jehovah's Witness (and have only been able to do that a couple times, try as I might)

- We had a lesson with a guy who, (long story short) broke up with his girlfriend, after he... beat up her husband. ...Yeahhhh he's a character

- We made a trip to Wynne, AR, to have dinner with some members who'd invited us and the sisters over. It's like 40 miles one way, so a big mileage commitment. Well, we got there, and then they canceled saying their kids were sick, so that was sad. But it put us in the right place at the right time, because we got to visit some other members up there and saw some cool miracles with that, That we wouldn't have seen if we hadn't made the trip.

And then that gets us to my 100th Sunday! A few weeks ago, a member of the branch presidency asked me to speak in church on that day, so I prepared a talk this week, and it started getting kinda long. I was worried I wouldn't give the high councilor enough time to speak after me, so I kinda trimmed the talk here and there to shorten it.

Well, we show up Sunday morning (after a few of our investigators that committed to coming to church flaked... again...) and I get informed that the high councilors had a family emergency and wasn't going to be able to make it. So I'd be the only speaker, and they'd just finish sacrament meeting whenever I finished.

It's actually kinda cool, cause at the start of my mission that would've freaked me out hahaha. I never had anxiety about public speaking or anything, but being the only speaker, and trying to take up more than about 10 minutes would've been a challenge. But yesterday, I just thought it was funny. The meeting only ended ~<10 minutes early. And it was the least nervous I think I've ever been to give a talk. It was a cool opportunity to reflect on how I've grown on my mission.

One of the couples we are teaching came to hear me speak, too, so that was awesome. The rest of the day we were just busy contacting people, and hunting people down who didn't come to church haha. We played basketball (which is called "hoopin'" on the streets) with one of the kids in the family we've been teaching, and that was fun. It keeps me humble, anyway!


So that's the highlights of week one hundred! It's been a good hundred weeks, and I'm glad to have another handful of them left!

Love y'all!
Elder Dahl

oliver.dahl@missionary.org

107 McCain Blvd Apt. D,
West Memphis, AR, 72301