Greetings and Meetings

I landed in San Jose, CA on Wednesday (Jan 25th). We went to the mission president's home and spent the night there.  I love the President and Sister Mella.  They are wonderful and super helpful.  Thursday (Jan 26th) I met my new companion and then watched a worldwide missionary training broadcast.  We learned some wonderful things to help us stay focused on our goals as missionaries to help others come unto Christ.  We also had some missionary schedule changes, my favorite one was that we can go to sleep between 9:30 and 10:30 so we can get more sleep!  My companion, Sister Maughan, is from Mesa, AZ. She will be one her 1 yr mark Feb 3 and I will hit my month mark the day after!  How time has flown!  She is super fun and cheerful.  We live with a widowed sister in our stake.  She keeps the front half of her house at insanely cold temps so I have to wear a parka to eat breakfast (or my sweatshirt and i'm shivering).  We are working with a YSA that covers 3 stakes and a ward in Pleasanton, CA.  The members out here are really nice!  There is a family that just moved from their ward to PA a while ago and I think they live nearby but in a different stake.  Whenever someone in the ward heard where I lived, they would say "Oh! do you know this family!" and I would reply, "no but I'm sure we have some mutual friends" :)  Our mission is not a tracting mission ( we don't go to neighborhoods and knock on every door) so we are a service mission.  Each companionship to tries to do 20 hrs of service a week.  We do about two hours of service a day and can find people to teach by walking around public spaces and talking to people about the gospel.  I've been super busy all week trying to get to know the members and the area and I'm excited to learn more! 
Love,
Sister Duersch