X-treme X-cultural Xperience

I have lived in Austria, Germany, Iran and California, but none of those experiences quite compares to the cross-cultural moment I had tonight. What, you might ask, could trump those? Me speaking to a group of 182 college students -- every single one of them female. That's what.
When I first heard I was speaking to the students of one floor in a residence hall, it was going to be 60 female students. Then I found out a little later two other floors of the same hall didn't have speakers so I would be addressing all three floors of hall 25 -- a total of 182 girls. Even then I wasn't fazed. No, I was fine until I walked into the lecture hall at 9:45. I felt like I had just walked into the women's bathroom. Now I have never been in the women's bathroom, but I imagine it would be like this. Every single eye in the room was on me and I think I could hear them all thinking, "What is he doing here?!?!" (Note to my wife: I cannot actually hear women's thoughts.) They can't have been shocked though because I'm sure they were told they'd be having a guy speaking. They may, however, have been surprised to see that I was not 50, since just about every other agency rep here is.

Anyway, I did feel alternately like:
a) I was sitting in on a giant sorority meeting
b) I was the last living man on the planet
and c) I was bravely going where no man had gone before.

I think I just earned the right to be called a true "pioneer". Honestly, I was a little afraid. But I gathered my wits about me and addressed them, feeling very much like I'd stepped into a time warp and wound up back in 1950 (i.e. man speaks, women listen). Part of me wanted to call one of the women in the front row up, hand her my notes and insist that she speak instead while I sat in her seat or went outside to have a cigar and belch a few times.

But I made it through, got past the "dear Lord what am I doing here?" and the "my goodness these college girls can be very rowdy" and managed to deliver what I thought was a pretty competent message. Around 20 ladies stood up at the end when asked if there were any there who planned to go into full-time missions, though I'm sure most or all already planned to do so before I began. Hopefully some will have been impacted by what I said and will remember this night as long as I will.