Well, I'm not in Barrio 1, as I thought I would be.

...Instead, I was sent to replace Elder Meek in Villalba, a small city north of Madrid. It just happens to be in the same district as.... Segovia! It's been somewhat eerie and surreal walking the same streets that I did on exchanges several times a year ago, and just to top off the weirdness, I went to Segovia today for preparation day and visited a few of the members and streets that I know so well. It was great, but, like I said, weird.

Villalba is an incredible area! When I got here, there were 7 people with baptismal dates! Since then, some have been adjusted, and others have been added. There are a lot of great people here: members, investigators, and everyone else. Sure, it's still hard work, but it is doable. I have a great companion, Elder Holub, who is incredibly focused and hard-working, and also super optimistic.

It's great being out of the office and being able to work full time again. I've missed being able to focus purely on missionary work. No more residency trips! No more empadronamiento [census] checks! No more email-sorting, file-organizing, or report-preparing! No more embassy-registering, contract-negotiating, or reference-forwarding. Just good old missionary work. Talk about a breath of fresh air. :)

We have some neighbors who are friends of ours who live down the hall: Ana María, and her kids Joaquín and María Jo. They're from Peru, but they lived in the United States for a long time and are now big fans of Halloween. Before I came here, they had been decorating ours and their apartment doors with paper pumpkins and ghosts, and spider webs. So, the day of Halloween came and we decided to dress up a bit for the kids (who both speak perfect English and really like us). I dressed up as a basic vampire and my companion was a rudimentary mummy. We also made "Monster Brownies" for them, complete with candy eyeballs and teeth, and took them over. It was fun. I'll send a picture of the dress-up, but the picture of the doors and brownies will have to wait.

Life is good. I'm in an apartment with just two of us again, so it gets a little lonlier than it did before. The weather is getting a bit cold, rainy and windy. I like it. Soon I'll be able to wear my awesome trenchcoat again. In the meantime, we've just been wearing light jackets.

I love you all and am glad to be a missionary. We have to go grocery shopping now, but know that I'm doing fine and that I plan on writing some letters to my favorite family on earth soon.

Later!
-Elder Knorr