I realized last week during weekly planning that I was staring down the last week of this transfer! Unbelievable! It seems only such a short time ago that I was starting here, and now in little more than the blink of an eye a whole six weeks has passed! Time is like that on the mission. All we can really do is just push forward and try to "make the best of it" – a little inside joke for all of you Christopher Knorr fans out there ;)
I'm glad to hear that my letters are well received. I do enjoy receiving letters a whole lot! It's good to hear from my parents, my beloved siblings and my friends every so often; it helps remind me of all the blessings Heavenly Father has given me. I really do appreciate all the letters and well-wishes that you all send. They've helped get me through some trying times so far.
Well, I have some sad news. I tried making the oatmeal cookies out of the oatmeal cookie mix and it was a terrible disaster. First off, I made the mistake of adding melted butter instead of softened butter; this melted all the chocolate chips. Then, we didn't have a metal cookie sheet so we tried doing it in our glass casserole dish. Bad idea. The bottom of the cookies didn't cook and it just became a huge mess. We had a good laugh at ourselves, at least.
Since I've already started the sad news I'll just get the rest of it out of the way right now. We've been having some trying times with our investigators and recent converts. All 3 of our recent converts have gotten jobs recently that require them to work on Sunday, which is just no good at ALL. We've tried to teach them the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy, but it just hasn't been sticking! As for our investigators, one of them moved out to a pueblo, making it hard for us to meet with them, and the other two just aren't keeping their appointments with us. It just kind of seems like everything is falling through lately; we've spent a couple of days now having all our appointments fall through and just walking the streets trying to make contacts. So, that's kind of how the work is right now. We'll keep trying with all of our people and praying that they'll get the desires to progress in the Gospel.
Today was a good Preparation Day. First off, it's my companion's birthday!!! We sang him a special rendition of "Happy Birthday to You" that was sung to the music of the American national anthem instead of to the normal song. You can probably imagine how it would sound. Six other elders came in from Madrid and we all went to the cathedral. I took lots of pictures! I didn't bother trying to make a [photo] CD today because I knew that I would be taking so many pictures. Plus, we've been a little stretched for time today, due mostly to our adventures. We went into the cathedral and looked around at all the high vaulted ceilings and artwork and stained glass windows. Cathedrals are very impressive buildings, and if you know your Bible, you'll most likely pick up on a lot of the symbolism and be able to identify a lot of the artwork. I like touring cathedrals. We then took a little walk around the alcazar (fortress) and enjoyed the nature. There were also several good places to take pictures of the castle, and we even ran into our branch president, Presidente Galera! I took a picture of him and me together.
For lunch, we went to a rather pijo (pricey) buffet down by the aqueduct. They had ok food but it wasn't the best I've had. Better yet, they had a clever little trick at work in this place: they only allow you one free drink. It costs a good amount to buy another. In this way, they can control the amount of food that their patrons eat because they'll eventually run out of water and won't be able to eat any more. I noticed this early on and was frankly shocked by their devilish scheme. But there was one thing they apparently failed to take into account: no one ever got thirsty from eating too much jello. So after the main course, I took advantage of this propitious oversight and ate about 10 little bowls of strawberry jello and also a good amount of egg flan, which is a tasty egg-based pudding, and several bowls of soft serve ice cream. So the score currently stands at: Elder Knorr: 1 European Restaurant: 0Well, I hope that Emily recovers from her Strep throat quickly. It's no fun having it: I think I had it once too. Good to hear that everyone's participating in fun activities and gearing up for the upcoming school year. Exciting!!! I wish you all luck in your scholastic adventures.
Well, preparation day is nearly over. Thank you for the email and the news! I'm doing fine here. Take care!
-Elder Knorr
