09/14/2015

Hey!                                                                                                    Sept.14,2015

The weather is getting progressively warmer everyday and the smell of the sea every morning is always pleasant.

We had two wonderful baptisms yesterday! It was a grandmother and her grandson both from the DRC. It felt good to get down into the font again. I haven't done so since the good ole days in Paarl. Very special experience when the Grandmother shared her testimony about how much this gospel has changed her. Our teaching pool is expanding. 

We have been receiving a lot of referrals. We also have another baptism date set for the 27th of this month. It is very likely to hold. We found a father led family through referrals and the father has come to church every single Sunday.

Things are going well with my new companion. I'm trying to help him be a little more outgoing. Sometimes, he can be a bit reserved around people and quite during lessons. He is a good teacher and has a great knowledge about the gospel. Especially for a recent convert of only a year and a half.

This week definitely had its adventures. On Friday, the U.S embassy in Cape Town received a threat from a local terrorist group and so we were warned not to wear anything that would indicate us as Americans. Crazy stuff!

A spiritual highlight for me this week would be a lesson on stewardship that I learned. A lady in a less active family approached me on Sunday very upset that we had not visited them in a while. I knew about them and their issues but I kept procrastinating seeing them due to what I thought were more important people with more important problems to resolve. I was wrong. 

This area is my under my stewardship and if I don't do my very best to work for the well being of everyone than I have let down my Father in Heaven. I guess you could say that this is a small turning point for me, to be a better missionary and to be a wise steward.

Overall, it has been a good week. Full of great lessons learned and experiences that will change me for the better.

9/07/2015

Hello,                                                                                                        Sept.7,2015

Well a lot has happened over the past few weeks. Missionary work in our area is surging. We are actually going to have two baptisms on Sunday. We have been teaching a Congolese part-member family who have really made some good strides forward in terms of conversion.

It consist of the Grandfather who is a member and the Grandmother and grandson who are investigators. So they have been attending church for the last couple of weeks and are progressing very well. Their names are Astrid and Christian.

There is a large amount of foreigners who live in our area and they are far more receptive to our message than the native population. Not one of our investigators are from South Africa. Most of our investigators are Zimbabwean. They seem to be naturally humble and are very excited when we share the gospel with them.

Our area still has many challenges. But we are working to overcome them. A lot of our work recently has been focused on working with the members. The going has been slow but we are making steps. 

A new transfer has begun! We drove up as a district to the mission home in Pinelands and I said farewell to Elder Rasmussen. I then waited for my new companion. He had to fly in from East London. Missionary work in the eastern cape is very different than missionary work here so I am hoping he adapts to the big city soon.

My new companion is Elder Mubaiwa from Zimbabwe. He has been a member of the church for a year and a half. He has a pretty interesting conversion story. He is the only member in his immediate family.

The weather is gradually getting warmer and warmer here. South African spring has arrived. You can practically smell it in the air. Winter is gone. Although it never felt like a proper winter in the first place.

We've had some pretty fun P-days recently. There is a large population of European expats in Cape Town. So we browsed some of the stores that had imported food from Europe. It made the danish missionary kind of trunky. I spent probably more money than I should have on loads of Swiss chocolate.

We've thoroughly explored a mall called Canal Walk which is the 3rd largest in the whole of Africa. It is very close to our area so we frequent it often.

We had a funny experience this week. I found some recently baptized Nigerian members in our records that seem to have gone completely inactive. They supposedly live in the small township on the edge of our area.

The record didn't give a precise address in where they lived. Since township addresses are useless anyway. The only detail that the record gave was that they owned a hair supplies shop in the middle of the township.

So we decided to look for them on foot. We spent a lot time wondering through the township asking various Nigerians if they knew them. It was kind of fun being the sole white guy in crowds of Africans trying to track someone down.

We eventually found out that they had moved to a huge township called Khayelitsha. I'm kind of let down that we didn't find them. But at the same time it was a cool story to tell.

Life continues and soon I will be reaching my year mark on mission. Time always keeps marching onward at a remarkable pace. I hope that my service will always make a difference in others and in myself.

Love,

Elder Sean Patrick Herrick

08/24/2015

Hey!                                                                                                                 Aug.24,2015

The weather has been mildly warm this last week here in Cape Town. Although we had a thunderstorm last night coming off the Atlantic Ocean. Cape Town weather changes very fast and the wind can really blow if it wants to.

We had a very successful week in terms of missionary work. We found some really solid people through member referrals and the member missionary plan is starting to have a very positive affect on the faith of the members and us as well. 

Five investigators showed up to church and we they are all very powerful and we may have some baptisms around the corner.

We taught some very spiritual and inspired lessons this last week and the people we are teaching are making huge strides forward. The "Meet the Mormons" fireside went well a lot of people were crying when it was finished so I would call it a success.

The bishop of our ward died this week after a long battle with liver failure. We found out on Friday it made a good day a little depressing. The bishop lived in our area so we visited his home often to do service for him and his wife. We gave his wife a blessing after church yesterday. It was a very emotional experience.

It seems like I've been involved in a lot of blessings these days. This last week has been full of people getting all emotional around me. 

We had a fun P-day adventure last Monday. We searched all through the city of Capt Town for some Pop Tarts. We heard a rumor that a store sold imported American food. After a long journey and many disappointments we finally found them at a store all the way in Vredehoek.

It almost made me trunky opening up that box and reading the American labels and stuff. The small box cost us over 70 Rand. Yeah it was pricey. But it was soooo worth it!

So yeah awesome adventure!  But on the flip side we've have had some very spiritual experiences with all the people that I come into contact with recently and I can see the changes being made in there lives. 

We grow as individuals during times of trail and hardship. And although we don't realize it during the moment. We can look back and see how far we've come.

So That is all for this week. My most sincere apologies for the short letters. Time can be short on Mondays. The only day of the week I can email.

Love,

Elder Sean Patrick Herrick

08/17/2015

Hey Everyone,                                                                                                 Aug.17,2015

It has been a busy week with all the member lessons that we've been teaching. I was informed yesterday that our companionship is leading our zone in the total number of member lessons taught. 

I hope that over a period of time we will see the fruits of our labors. Successes with investigators in our area have been rare and very difficult to find. It has been somewhat discouraging at times, especially when we invest so much time and emotion in people and then have to drop them because they aren't taking the message seriously. 

That is why we're working our tails off to get member missionary work off the ground for this area. It is the only way. I have the faith that we can over come these problems and build the kingdom here. We just have to continue to exercise faith and patience. If there is anything that I've learned recently it is the principle of patience. 

We had a cool spiritual experience this last week. We have been teaching this less active guy who works in a sort of hair cut place in the township. He is very flaky and likes to lie to us about his past and reasons why he doesn't come to church. When we pulled up in our car to visit him, we had no idea of what to say to him. We discussed it briefly and I felt impressed that we should go in and wait to see what happens. We walked in and sat down and waited. 

We tried to start a lesson with him but soon a couple a guys came into the shop and started asking us questions. They were so shocked to see a couple of umlungu's (white guys) in a black township. As soon as they sat down, a few more guys came in and started asking us questions. Very shortly, a small crowed formed and they were all staring intently at me. I stood up and my companion and I started teaching them the restoration. Very cool experience. It also gave the less-active an opportunity to testify of our message and I'm sure his faith grew as well.

We are having a fireside this Saturday night at the Milnerton chapel. We are going to show "Meet the Mormons" We have been working diligently as a district to make all the necessary preparations and to invite everyone that we come into contact with. So we'll always keep trying, even when the road gets rough.

8/10/2015

Hey                                                                                                            Aug.10,2015

First and foremost, thank you for all the lovely letters and videos. I received quite a lot of them. I'm planning on sending some videos sometime in the near future. I turned 20 this last Friday. It was a nice birthday. My old companion Elder Dangerfield came over to our flat and brought me cake and we then we ordered some pizza.   

Well it has honestly been a crazy last few weeks. Elder Gurney has been having some issues with his eyes and the doctors really weren't sure what the issue was. 

So we received a phone call on Tuesday morning that my comp was flying back home to Utah for treatment for a few weeks and if all goes well he can return to this area before the end of the month. So Tuesday morning was super hectic. Elder Gurney was shell shocked! We had only a five hour notice before his flight was leaving that day to the states. It all happened so fast. So I spent the next couple of days with the assistants to the president until my new companion Elder Rasmussen, arrived from Paarl. So a lot of changes in a very short amount of time. 

P-days have been fun. We had a huge paint balling activity as a zone near Stellenbosch a couple of weeks ago. It was so much fun with everyone running around and shooting each other. 

As far as the work in our area is concerned things we have been trying very hard to get the members involved in the work. We have been teaching a part-member family for the past couple of weeks. The husband is a member. The family is from the Congo so they speak French as their first language. We are teaching the wife and their grandson. The lessons have been going well and they are attending church as a family. So a few baptisms might be around the corner soon.

We received some very important training on member missionary work this last week. Our whole mission is implementing a six step pan to boost members confidence ans to help them along the way. I have faith that this will help our area and the church to grow here.

The weather has been pretty fair. We've had quite a few warm days where the sun was shining. Sometimes, we wake up some mornings and the mist from the sea is so thick that it shrouds the road.

Overall, it has been a good week. The work is slowly but surely progressing in this area. I think things are looking up. We just have to be patient.

Love,

Elder Sean Patrick Herrick

7/20/2015

Hey,                                                                                                                      July 20,2015

I am very sorry about there being no blog letter this last week. My companion has been having some issues with his eyes and we had to go to the doctor during our email time.

These last couple of weeks have been very interesting. It has been a real challenge for us to find serious investigators. We've done a lot of teaching people on the streets and then follow up on them where they live later. 

Most of the people that we've contacted are only mildly interested and drop the follow up appointments that we try to set up. So it can be very frustrating at times. We are teaching some really nice people. Its just that they need to take our message a bit more seriously.

P-days have been fun as a district. A couple of Mondays ago we went to Fish Heok and Simon's Town to see the penguins who live in the rocks by the shores of the bay. It was heavily packed with tourists from around the world. We then drove up the peninsula and went towards Hout bay and on to sea point in Cape Town.

We then went to one of the only Subways in the whole of Africa. It was very expensive and definitely not worth the price. The following Monday, we went to a natural history museum in downtown Cape Town. It was fairly decent. It featured a pretty cool African dinosaur exhibit and there was a huge scale model of a blue whale's jaw.

We've had some stormy weather this last week. Our flat is right next to the sea so when the wind blows and the weather gets rough, we can really smell the ocean. 

We've been working with the leadership in the ward in finding less actives and trying to invite them back into church. There is also a number of part member families in our area that we're trying to visit and teach.

The ward has a lot of challenges, but the members are really starting to step up and change things. Mission life is hard at times, especially when success is rare and there are days when I wake up in the morning and have to remind myself why I am out here. Growing up and learning to refine ourselves through tough times is all part of our Heavenly Father's plan.

Life really is a long endurance race. Sometimes, we have steep hills to climb and other times we have long stretches of flat ground. There are times when we get very tired and want to stop running. It is during these moments that we must show our best qualities and keep pushing forward even though it is painful. Yes it is a strenuous race, but the price at the finish line is absolutely worth it.

I am so grateful for this gospel in my life and the strength that it gives me, even when my legs get tired.

Love,

Elder Sean Patrick Herrick