Week 2

Letter from Elder Auger

here are some things i did this week:

We had a really awesome firesided over the internet from Russel m ballard, and he said that whenever you are having a hard timne take your thoughts back to joseph smith in liberty jail, and how hard that was fror him, really made me appreciate how good we have it. I also recited the first vision in spanish for the first time to a mock investigator and it was awesome. sunday consists of the sacrament and singing, I have gotten to play the piano for a couple meetings which was awesome. I also gave a lesson to our district on perserverence this week and i taught them about diligence, i shared the F2TF story about tyler smith and they loved that, so we wrote F2TF on the board.

Because I want elder beard to be able to say the first vision, I had to motivate him a little extra, so yesterday I asked him if he wanted to fast until he had it memorized (He has been struggling to do so) and he said he wanted to learn it, but not that bad HAHA so I finally told him that I wasn't going to eat until he memorized it, so i didnt eat dinner last night. He is a pretty kind person and didnt want me to suffer, so When we woke up this morning he could say it to me perfectly. I credit this tactic of motivation to my dad, thanks pops.

We went to the store this week and i bought a new tie and some candy, that was fun. I got a haircut during p day, and to answer the question about how the schedule goes for p days, we get up at 6:30 eat breakfast, study for an hour, then go to the temple for like 4 hours, its awesome, today we did a session and initiatorys. sweet. then we get like 4 hours to clean, have gym time, take a nap, and only 40 mins to email. ugh. I have been playing a lot of fooseball, only one person beat me, and he barely did so, he is a teacher here, which all of our teachers are from the DR- steph. I have been writing in my journal every night i havent missed a day yet!

The most home sick thing that happened to me this week was on sunday night we watched meet the mormons and it killed me, The last story about the missionary and his mom got me TOO emotional, but Im good, Elder Beard and I just had a little pity party back in our room for like 10 minutes then we were good :)

All the guys in my room like to sing, we recorded ourselves singing an acapella song and it was rad! Things are still exciting here in the MTC, I just want to get out in the field though, I can never understand people when we go to the park because our teachers speak so slowy and simply for us, But we have only been here 2 weeks so its alright.

The Lord Is good, and i have seen tender mercies just about every day, our district leader elder affleck asked us to start praying specifically for everyone in our district and it has helped.

I know this church is true, and although i miss south weber my family and friends, I am so glad to be where I am right now.

Muchos amor,

ELDER AUGER

Week 1

Letter from Elder Auger:

HOLA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!!!

The dominican republic is just awesome! The MTC Is awesome and I am loving every single minute of it! The food here is awesome, There is just so much of it, i cant even finish sometimes. I will try to send pictures after i am done writing, we only get 40 minutes... 

anyways, my companion's name is ELDER BEARD. He is from beaver Utah and was the SBO President at his school. He kind of reminds me of cameron tebbs at times, so funny, he cracks us up every single day :) he brought this little plastic turtle that we have been hiding around our room all week, its kinda our rooms "thing" haha. the other two elders in our room are ELDER BOGUE and ELDER BEECHER. they were both on the missionaries coming soon page, E. Bogue took state in the long jump, and Elder Beecher is 6"5' and plays hoops and volley ball. I am really so blessed to be with these guys, they are all super awesome. we have 8 kids total in our district, so two rooms. we each go to the classes together and its only us in the room, there is a total of about 60 missionaries here, which is way cool!

The Language-

the language is just like dad predicted, frustrating at times, we practice teacher our teachers as "investigators all the time and we have to try to listen to them and respond all in spanish. it really is baptism by fire. It's coming along better though. my companion isnt as fluent as i am, but we practice together and he is adding more and more stuff into the lessons we teach our "investigator". the teacher we practice teaching is name Hermana Garcia and she calls us her kids, or hijos, haha, She is such a sweet heart, a couple nights ago we were struggling teaching her (as our investigator) and i was seriously on the edge of breaking, but after we were all done, she came into our class room and bore her testimony to us that she knew that we were called of God, and that we needed to be in the Dominican Republic, and that she knows that it is hard right now, but you are going to see the blessings every day. The spirit was so strong, I had to admit, but I cried. it was just what i needed to hear.

Another cool thing that we got to do was go to the park twice this week, we go at like 8:15 for about 45 minutes. its already dark here at that time. It is just across the street so we walk there and get to practice speaking to people. we take BOMs and Pamphlets to hand out. when Elder Beard and I first went out there, we were scared to death, we could only say the things we had memorized in spanish, which include the first vision, the baptismal invitation and our purpose as missionaries, the rest we just have to wing. anyways, the first guy we pass, he looks at us and asks if we speak spanish, we said, pequito, and he said he was learning english, so we talked to him for the next 30 minutes. he told us that he was studying at the universidad, and that he believed in the bible, we explained that we did as well, along with this other testiment of jesus christ, EL LIBRO DE MORMON!!!!!!! he seemed interested, so we gave it to him. he continued to tell us that he had always been catholic, but he had a dream (which he described all in spanish) but the only thing i caught that he said, was OTRO IGLESIAS which means other churches, he explained that he never really told anyone that, and elder beard and I just looked at eachother and got super excited! we had to go so we asked for his phone number and told him other missionaries would call him later. 2 books of mormons placed so far, but who is counting ;) haha, chistes, chistes (JOKES) but it is cool that we actually get to do some work while we are in the MTC. I Love it. 

Thursdays are P days, so we get to write home and got to go to the temple today, which was awesome, but the power went out for a minute during the session, it was pretty funny! We get to excercise every day, which normally consists of either playing volleyball or basketball, ping pong or fooseball in thier tiny gym area, or lifting thier 25 pound wieghts that they have ;) it really is so awesome though. 

I hope I can send these pics through, elder beard is the one who is sitting on the toilet surrounded by all his personal towels,

the food is what we get for lunch every day, rice, beans, fruit, salad, bread and some sort of mystery meat ;) haha, 

we got to go walk around the temple sunday night, the picture of the four guys in front of the temple are the elders in my room,

Everything is awesome down here in the DR, sorry if i dont respnd to every email i get, i just dont have all that much time, but please send me questions about what else to tell you about, i read everything :)

I love you all so much, 

ELDER AUGER 

Elder Auger Arrives in the DR

Email from Elder Auger:

Hola Familia!

We are here in the MTC or (CCM) safe and sound. It's a completely different world, But I'm Loving every second of it. I don't have a lot of time for details, But I Did Buy a lady Breakfast with the 20$ and I did place my first book of mormon! On the plane I sat next to these two dominican brothers, one was 15 and one was 19, we talked about the DR and what they missed most while they were visiting the US. They said they're family. I explained what I would be doing for the next few years and explained that I will miss my family as well. But because of this book, I know that I will be able to Live with my family forever. I asked if the older brother would be willing to take it and read it, and he agreed. Boom I'm a real missionary now. I have the name tag and everything! So dang cool. I didn't sleep at all on the plane, I just read your guys letters, wrote in my journal and tried to imagine what the next to years will be like.

We got off the plane and found our escort waiting for us at the airport exit, he didn't speak a lick of english. They hauled all of our stuff into a big trailer and we piled into a 14 seater van! This made me think of you dad ;) the drive here was crazy, they don't have any traffic laws here. cars run stop signs, merge whenever the heck they want, we almost go in a car accident every 30 seconds! good thing my mission mainly consists of walking. the elders are amazing, I love every single one of them. I haven't met my companion yet though, he flies in at like 1:30 tomorrow morning. ill let you know what he is like. I won't get to write until next thursday, kind of brutal, but I will be busy doing good things that I will let you know all about :) im sorry you guys balled the whole way home, i miss you tons and love you even more. I have total peace through everything though, it's exciting, but I know the homesickness will come when I go to bed tonight. tell d bone ill miss sleeping with him for the next two years. let me know what you guys do this week, and ill send pics next time I write :) 

Muchos amor,

Elder Auger

Here's pictures on his MTC president at the DR Temple

 Here's his MTC District

Colton becomes Elder Auger

Welcome Elder Auger

Colton was set apart as Elder Auger on Tuesday July 14, 2015 at 7:00 by President Peterson. The Stake president asked us all to say something. There wasn't a lot of words, just tears. I do think I heard Jaden squeeze out "Prom Date". After the prayer, Elder Auger hopped out of the chair and you could tell he was ready to get to work. Pretty amazing transformation.

Here's a picture of Tyler, now Elder Kelsey's, setting apart that happened the night before Colton's.

So Elder Auger had 2 hours to kill before going to the airport. He went back to the house and said his goodbyes to each room.

Then he took his Junior Companion, Jonathan, and family and tracted into a Asian Famliy called Pei Wei.

Then Elder Auger was dropped off at the airport, where he was able to show the world his new luggage.

Then something really cool happened. He met another Elder at the airport. Found out he was going to the same mission as Elder Auger. Then another Elder walked up, also going to the same mission. Turns out there was 10 Elders flying to the Dominican Republic that night. All the Elders were so excited and some Mother's prayers were answered. Then as we drove home in tears, we got a picture on our phones from a random stranger who took a picture of all the Elders at the gate.

So he's off to the Dominican Republic East mission for the next two years.