The Perris Ward itself is kind of small. It was split into two wards earlier this year, Perris and Lakeview, so now they are both smaller instead of being one huge ward. Something like 80% of the Perris Ward is less active, so it could be huge, there just aren't enough active members currently. We had our ward Christmas party this week, and that was pretty nice. We were able to meet a lot of people that way. We met the Bishopric and a few other families, and after Sunday I feel like I have a decent handle on the ward. We're also getting fed well so that is nice!
If you were to look at a map of our area, we live about in the middle, but all of the housing tracts and members live on the outer edges. This is a large area, probably 20 miles from side to side. On Tuesday I think we used 70 miles without really trying, and that was even after doing some of the most conscientious planning of my entire mission. Anytime we leave the apartment, it's pretty much going to be at least 15 miles, and that's if we go to one area, park, and then drive back for lunch. The hard part is that we have share the ward with bike missionaries. So if we're out working somewhere that is 10 miles from our apartment, we have to drive home to pick them up, then drive to our dinner appointment, then drive them home, then drive back out to whatever area we want to work in that night and then drive home at the end of the evening. Now 10 miles might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist that we are basically required to use somewhere between 35-50 miles just between the hours of 5 and 9 PM. Not to mention all the proselyting time lost from all that driving. All of our district meetings are down in Menifee, which is literally 20 miles round trip to DDM every week. So we are a little tight on miles (apparently the method for conserving miles that was used by previous missionaries in the area was to sleep in and not go out until 1 or 2 in the afternoon). When we've started racking up the miles, we've gone back to the apartment this week to mark up the map with every single member on the ward directory so that we don't waste all of our time, and it makes planning a lot easier. We have probably made more phone calls this transfer than any transfer of my mission as well, because if we have to drive somewhere, we want to make sure that someone is going to be there.
The area is interesting. Some of the neighborhoods are kind of run down; people have small dirt lots and chain link fences and a billion dogs. I've never understood why someone would want so many pets, especially when they struggle to support themselves. But there are other parts that look like the rest of Southern California - 2-story stucco tract homes with tile roofs. We also have some people that live way out in the boonies. One dinner appointment lived at the very northeast corner of the ward and we drove down dirt roads for 2 or 3 miles probably just to get there. Kind of fun, and definitely glad we have a Rogue instead of a little Corolla. The traffic here is not as bad so far as I've seen, though we have to be careful about what time we get on the 215. We try not to do any seeking with faith at night since the area is a bit more sketchy.
My district is us, the other Elders in the Perris Ward (Elder Spencer and Elder Mayo), and the Zone Leaders, Elder Pennington and Elder Dunn. Elder Spencer and Elder Mayo are both from Utah, but they're a lot more cowboy than Elder Herald and I who are from the "South". They're pretty fun to have around, and they've both been in the ward for a transfer or two so they know a lot of people and can help us out if we don't know something.
We currently don't have too many people in the teaching pool. The one new investigator we found this week actually lives outside our area. It was a referral from a referral and they sent us one street too far so we'll have to pass him on to the Woodcrest Elders instead. Oh well, this area has a lot of potential and I'm glad to be here. Overall the week has been a little stressful, because of the lack of a current teaching pool, as well as minimal resources to go out and fix that problem. But we'll work through it, it's just another challenge to face.
From the South Side . . . .
Elder Cornaby
The area is interesting. Some of the neighborhoods are kind of run down; people have small dirt lots and chain link fences and a billion dogs. I've never understood why someone would want so many pets, especially when they struggle to support themselves. But there are other parts that look like the rest of Southern California - 2-story stucco tract homes with tile roofs. We also have some people that live way out in the boonies. One dinner appointment lived at the very northeast corner of the ward and we drove down dirt roads for 2 or 3 miles probably just to get there. Kind of fun, and definitely glad we have a Rogue instead of a little Corolla. The traffic here is not as bad so far as I've seen, though we have to be careful about what time we get on the 215. We try not to do any seeking with faith at night since the area is a bit more sketchy.
My district is us, the other Elders in the Perris Ward (Elder Spencer and Elder Mayo), and the Zone Leaders, Elder Pennington and Elder Dunn. Elder Spencer and Elder Mayo are both from Utah, but they're a lot more cowboy than Elder Herald and I who are from the "South". They're pretty fun to have around, and they've both been in the ward for a transfer or two so they know a lot of people and can help us out if we don't know something.
We currently don't have too many people in the teaching pool. The one new investigator we found this week actually lives outside our area. It was a referral from a referral and they sent us one street too far so we'll have to pass him on to the Woodcrest Elders instead. Oh well, this area has a lot of potential and I'm glad to be here. Overall the week has been a little stressful, because of the lack of a current teaching pool, as well as minimal resources to go out and fix that problem. But we'll work through it, it's just another challenge to face.
From the South Side . . . .
Elder Cornaby