So I left the mission home on Wed morning and met my trainer his name is Elder Dangerfield from the Isle of Man in the UK. He didn't have a drivers licence back home so he can't drive here. Typically, it takes two months for a new missionary to be allowed to drive and they have to pass a written exam from the mission office. But the zone leaders told me that I would have to be driving on my first day.
Starting out it was really scary, especially in downtown Cape Town. But, now I am a pro at it.
So my first area that I have been to assigned is a place called Paarl which means pearl in Afrikaans. It is like an hour north of Cape Town so were kinda far from everyone else. It is a city of like 200,000 people. There is a huge Afrikaans speaking colured population here. There is also a black township that speaks Xhosa. I am trying to learn a little bit of both. There are four of us in the flat. The other elders are from South Africa and Malawi. They are walking and we are driving. The flat is kinda ghetto. But, we live in the nicest part of town. There is a white population here but, we aren't assigned to the area that we live in. Most of our work gets done in the townships. The poverty in townships is worse than anything that you could ever imagine. My heart broke when I saw it for the first time. Driving through townships is probably one of the craziest experiences I've ever had. The streets are tiny and full of people and cars. Despite all of this Paarl is a very beautiful place, surrounded by mountains on all sides. I hope that I can find success in this place and eventually, learn to love it.
Sincerely,
Elder Sean Herrick
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