Tomorrow we reach the one month mark!!  It's hard to believe time has gone so quickly.  I've baked more cookies in the last month than I have in the past 30 years (it helps to have daughters who like to bake).  Life here in Fremont is quite lovely.  The weather has been really nice--we've seen a lot of sunshine and while it can be a little chilly in the mornings, it has basically been sweater weather.

The diversity in this city is unreal. As of 2010, Caucasians made up one-fourth of the population.  Fremont is home to the largest community of Afghan Americans and has a huge population of Asian Indians.  We passed by two high schools after school one afternoon and did not see one Caucasian child.  The sweet couple we live with is from El Salvador and there are lots of Filipinos.

The traffic, too, is unreal.  I have not driven since we've been here.  We're finding however, that there are a few major streets that take us mostly where we want to go and that has helped.  Our stake area is huge and so is our ward.  The stake covers 5 cities (think suburbs of Salt Lake) and it's not unusual to drive 8 miles from our home to a member of our ward.

We've been serving with some incredible young elders and sisters.  It's transfer time this week so we're really sad to say goodbye to a few of them.  We've had the opportunity to go on teaching appointments with them and met some sweet investigators and new members here. I'm guessing that in the mission field, it's not that unusual, but in our ward we have a set of sisters, a set of elders and us.  The elders also serve in the deaf branch, interpret and teach.

Craig is coming along well with his sign language, me not so much. We have a list of over 200 young single adults in our stake, not including the YSA Ward in Hayward.  We've been trying to track down and invite (hence the cookies) and been a little successful.  We met a new YSA working in the local Red Lobster who introduced himself and said he'd like to attend Institute.  We hope he'll come!

Here are a few photos!  I actually figured it out!!

Have a lovely week--we love you all!!

Elder and Sister McDonald

Sweet Sister Doney and Sister Perez

Elders Clark and Watson

Elder and Sister McDonald at the MTC

A Few of the Senior Missionaries at the MTC