Week 85

so basically, this week has been super busy preparing everything for transfers, in which i will be transferred as well, to possibly my last area in the mission! its called Maquiteria, and its part of the zona ozama, where i was a zone leader, so i know the area pretty well, because we did exchanges and interviews all the time there! my companion will be Elder Marte, an elder waiting for a visa to go to Italy, he is dominican, he is just as big as Elder Lopez, so it should be fun! 

 

we recieved a special assignment to start working on videoing and editing a video that consists of testimonies of families that have been married and baptized in the church and have been blessed because of accepting the restored gospel, I used to make little videos all the time in high school and so did Elder Marte, so president had this great idea of putting us together, and letting us work on it! I dont know all the details still, but will let you guys know more as we go along!

 

It was kinda rough to say goodbye to brayan and kateryn and the familia of martin and carolina, who first fellowshipped brayan and kateryn, had FHE with us and them like three times and were always helping them come to church, I am extremely grateful for the faithfulness of these members and I hope to work as hard and be as dedicated as they are when i get home!

 

today while preparing a new house for some sisters to move in, elder aguirre and I drove to hainamosa campo and basically moved all the essentials from one house to another, it was super fun, but hard work, we stopped by one of the houses of the elders to eat, (the house of my trainee Elder Lopez) and he had some make shift cement weights, we did some lifting while there, which was fun, but i did rip my shirt... kinda funny... i will send the video!

 

it was also the independance day of the DR today, so there were all these people dressed up in wierd costumes with wierd traditions, one is that they takes the cow intestines, tie a not in them, blow them up like a balloon and then when they dry you paint them and hit people with them... super wierd, and missionaries were to be in the house by dark today for safety reasons... i will send a pic...

 

anyways, the time has flown, still loving the mission, the work, but i am excited to get home to my family and friends soon! please be careful, CTR always, know I love you all! have a good week!

 

ELDER AUGER

 

the wierd costumes with the gross balloons!

 pic of the families of brayan and kateryn, martin and Carolina

 elder aguirre parking where he obviously is told not to

 me lifting the home weights

an old couple we managed to help get married in the country

Week 84

So the Highlight of this week was that we found this new family of venezuelans and one of the ladies in the fam is amazing! Her name is Genesis. she is about 25 and lives with her boyfriend and his family. we left her the first pamphlet, the Restoration, and she read it all, and understood it all! she explained everything perfectly to us! even the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthood, which blew us away! then we left her the Book of Mormon, with the invitation to read the introduction, and when we came back, she had read the first 5 chapters! she explained everything to us again! the family of Lehi, that they had left Jerusalem, and had to get the brass plates, talked about Laban and everything! then she said her favorite part of what she had read was 1 nefi 3:7!!! scripture mastery!!! We all thought she was pulling our leg and that she was already a member! it was amazing how well she understood! but she is not! she is just searching for the truth and now she has found it, we have plans to teach the gospel this next time and talk about baptism, super huge miracle!

 

we have been busy with interviews, trainings and things to do with people getting married. but we did also manage to have a little fun this p day, Elder Carrillo and I organized a soccer activity with president's permission and attendance, so we went to this nice park where they practiced for the olympics when they were here and played on this field, 11 on 11 soccer!!! super fun time!!! i hadn't played soccer like that for a while! i felt like i was playing at a college stadium during president's cup, super cool! we took a cool pic in the stands, ill be sure to send that as well! I of course wore my Mexican Soccer Jersey, hahaha! Viva Mexico!!!! ;)

 

apart from that, not much to say about the week, just weird to think that now i have less than 4 months in the mission! I'll try not to think about it too much, if I do, it will go way too slow!!! hahaha 

 

transfers are coming up this week, it will be fun to see what happens! I think I am going to be heading to my last area in the mission!!! crazy, so ill keep you updated next week on what happens!

 

love you all tons! hope you have a good week!

 

ELDER AUGER

 handshake before the game, and post shots in the bleachers, such nice turf field, huge score to be able to play there!

 pics of the soccer field

we did a PK shootout at the end and i hit one of the PKs to win it! super fun time!!!

 a pic with a dominican sasquatch!!!

for those of you that speak spanish, the picture of the car is a good example of the dominican accent and spelling!!! hahahaha :)

Week 83

So this was another wild and exciting week of lots of miracles and adventures!

 

First off, the Hospital.

 

So we get a call Thursday Night, from an elder telling us that he had fallen, and that he was on his way to the hospital, he said he thought he had broken his ankle, that it was super swollen, and that he couldn't walk on it at all. so we head down there at about 7:00 PM and get there around 8:00. we enter the ER and there he Is in the trauma room, surrounded by tons of people with other serious medical Injuries, the majority of which were the result of motorcycle accidents, which is a serious problem here in the DR! Anyways, they tell him they are going to move him to a bed, and so i accompany him, because only one could at a time, and he gets situated in the hospital bed, and we are next to this guy who is seriously banged up. while i am sitting there talking to elder Burity (from Brazil) we hear this voice behind us say "Elder, Elder, I am a member!"  the guy next to elder Burity, was from Hainamosa Campo, and told us his story. he had been on the way to give a blessing to his mother when all of the sudden he gets hit by this motorcycle, which flings him up into the air, leaving him with neck injuries and tons of road burns. so we asked if he would like a blessing of health and comfort, and he said that he did, so elder burity gets of his hospital bed, and limps over on one foot and anoints him and i seal the anointing. The spirit was so strong, i was getting pretty emotional at the fact that the Lord put us two missionaries right next to this faithful, endowed member of the church. Later we found out that he had regained a lot of memory, and that he was officially out of danger. his sister was there with him and she was comforted as well that we were there. amazing experience. Elder Burity is good now as well, he has a boot on but can walk enough to proselyte, its just some seriously strained tendons in his left ankle. all is well!

 

Then this p day we took the opportunity to do one of the coolest things available to do here in the DR, we visited the national park of los Haitises, which consists of a motorboat tour around the peninsula on the northern part of the DR, which includes sights of the shores where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed, an exploration of Caves, and amazing sights through the ocean inlet rivers. made me so trunky for boating though, cant wait to hit it up after the mish, wake boarding and tubing! so many cool pics that tell the story better than I can, then we ate at this awesome oceanside restaurant, gotta love it!

 

Then on Sunday we had an awesome lesson with this venezuelan family, which are super cool, one of the daughters read the whole Restoration pamphlet and explained it all piece by piece, including the aaronic and Melchizedek priesthood!!! amazing lesson! anyways, at the end we are saying goodbye and the mother, who is about 50 years old or so, comes to shake my hand and instead, it turns into this bear hug! i couldn't do anything, she had me cornered!!! i didn't know what to do, i just kinda awkwardly put my hands up and started squirming, she just said, "we are latins, this is what we do in this house!" hahahaha i felt pretty awkward afterwards explaining that we as missionaries cant hug women while on the mish... hope she didn't get offended, she'll just have to know that after the mish, i will come back to give her an even bigger bear hug!

 

anyways, pretty good week, ill send some pics, we definately have to go to los haitises after the mish!

 

Love you all, 

 

ELDER AUGER

  On the Tour in the national park of Los Haitises...

 our cool tour guide and I

 , these are some parts where the pirates of the caribbean was filmed!

 

finally a restaurant on the beach front! SO AWESOME!

Week 82

So this was another crazy busy week! We spent all week planning and setting up for zone conference, i had to direct one day and work on getting the food ready the other day, always fun working towards making big missionary group meetings run smoothly. We discussed the month of january and what the Lord was able to do through his servants here in the east mission. Going into the new year we set a goal as a mission of helping 300 souls come unto christ, in only one month!!! We didnt quite meet our goal, but the Lord worked more miracles than we could have imagined, bringing 255 souls into the way that leads to eternal life!!! That is the most people that have been baptized in a single month in the history of this mission! We were all stunned at how the Lord's hand worked in the month of january. A total of 14 complete families were baptized, which in the year of 2018 can be sealed in the temple, including brayan and kateryn which is sooooo awesome :)

 

We are also working now and how we are going to adjust to new schedule changes, we have leadership counsel this wednesday so we will be dicussing that, as well as how to keep improving the mission to help even more people come unto christ! Interviews will now have to be done every transfer, which is going to be a lot of work for president! We are about 186 missionaries here in the DR east mission, and he has to interview us all every transfer, idk how that man has time to do anything! I asked him the other day "president, what are you doing tomorrow?" And he said "the real question is what am i not going to be doing tomorrow? There are always things waiting to be done, its just a matter of how many days it takes before i get to do them." Such a busy man.

 

Another cool thing that we found out during zone conference was that Elder Anderson From the quorum of the 12 is going to be visiting our mission next month!!! How cool is that!?!?!? We are going to meet with him live!!! Super stoked for that :)

 

Then we got the chance to go to the botanical gardens here in santo domingo, it was super beautiful, and we got to relieve some stress which was nice! Took some cool and funny pics while there.

 

thats about it for this week, Love you guys tons! be safe and hope you all have a great week!

 

ELDER AUGER

 

 Zone Conference, here is our zone santo domingo

here is the fruit table we set up, we get crafty some times ;)

botanical gardens

 

from what started out to be a sacred grove re-enactment picture, to the evolution of man ;)

china town poses, notice elder harris in the top left hand corner ;)

  the Crew of the Office :)

Elder Harris almost falling out of the train ;D tooo funny, this kid is literally almost as funny as cameron tebbs, hey thats funny, his name is actually cameron harris! funny!