Alfenas Brasil!

Oi gente!!
tudo bom? well yes i am here in brasil...haha and its been great so far, but before i forget, first of all, i cant get or send emails from anyone but family, so i guess let elder brambila and marchetti and everyone know ha. and second, the call, we have to do it before 4 i think and thats noon your time i think. i hope i have that right ha. and you get out of church at 2:30 right? i hope i have all of this right in my head ha. so you need to call me...at 2:30 my time. im like 99 percent sure thats 10:30 your time. the number is: xxx xx xxx xxxx xxxx
alright so now to answer your questions.

How many missionaries were on the flight from Miami to Belo with you? just one other. elder topou'ata from northern california. hes a pretty cool guy, but we didnt sit next to each other or anything ha

Did your luggage make it? yes it did! que bênção!! president parrella says that all the time haha

Who picked you up at the airport? the assistants got there like 30 minutes after we got through customs and whatnot. haha and then we waited there with them for president to get there then waited with them til the next plane got there like an hour and a half after ours.

How was your interview with the Pres? really good. i like him a lot

Can he speak English? yes, he speaks probably better english than i do haha i guess he went to BYU? not sure though haha

Who is your new companion? his name is elder vasquez. he's from são paulo. I guess in dereks mission ha idk. and he speaks really good english too

Is he a native? yes haha

How long has he been out? this is his last transfer!! he goes home at the beginning of july.

Is he a hard worker? yes very! and i love that. I'm really excited to be his companion and i guess he just opened this area a couple weeks before i got here. they have had a lot of them closed because of lack of missionaries, but we got like 21 new ones the day i got here. so now theres like 125 or so...so thats good

What town are you guys serving in? its called alfenas. and i guess its closer to são paulo than it is to BH hahah. I google mapped it and it is 4 hours and 14 minutes from Belo Horizonte and 5 hours and 27 minutes from Rio DE Janeiro and 3 hours and 57 minutes from Sao Paulo °Ü°

Do you have anyone you are teaching? haha, yes, we teach a lot. right now, i think we have like 4 progressing...idk

How is the language? Can you understand anything that is going on? haha.. hahahahha....welll....about that...no yeah, i'm starting to understand a lot better. we had district conference on sunday and i understood very little of that hah, but then we had a meeting yesterday with president and i understood almost all of that. it makes a difference though i think when i'm talking to other missionaries and pres, i think their accent isnt as hard to understand. but yeah, i'm definitely getting there.

How is the food? its good! its not that different haha idk i like it.

Weather? its really good. i guess its cold? but after being in wyoming i dont think so haha. its probably in the 60s or 70s idk

How is the ward? good. really nice. like i said we didnt have regular church sunday so i dont know a whole lot about the branch here or how many or anything but from the ones i know they are really nice.

Are you LOVING it??!!! yes!!! que bênção! amo o Brasil!

HOW do we do the Mother's Day call??? Can you buy a calling card there or do you just give us a number to call you? i'll give you my calling card stuff if you want 1800 xxxx xxxx card number: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx i dont know how much is left on it though. and i dont know if you guys want to like 3 way or whatever idk you can figure that stuff out haha.

anyway.
So the first day was pretty chill we were at the mission home/office most of the day because president had like 25 interviews to do ha it took a while then we stayed in a hotel and then took a bus out here to alfenas the next day, dropped off my stuff and got to work! haha anway i love it here. i love you guys! and i am excited to talk to you! ha but we did just talk, i'd kinda rather space them out but thats okay. até mais! tchau!
Elder Bergquist
p.s. we had a baptism sunday too :) it was really cool. and my comp let me do it :) good guy. love you all! tchau!

Just a little info on Alfenas that I googled: Thank you Wikipedia

Alfenas is a city and municipality in the southern part of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais state. In 2007 its population was 71,628 and the area of the municipality is 849 km2. The elevation is 888m. It is served by highways MG 179, BR 491 and BR 369. The distance to the state capital of Belo Horizonte is 335 km and the distance to São Paulo is 300 km. The slogan for the city is "Alfenas, the gateway to the sea of Minas", in reference to nearby Lake Furnas.

The main economic activity is the growing of coffee, with a planted area of 16,000 ha. Alfenas is the headquarters of the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association. After coffee other crops are corn, with 6,000 ha., potatoes, beans, tomatoes, and vegetables. Bananas and citrus fruits are also grown.

Alfenas is an important university town and is well known around the country for its courses in agronomy and dentistry.

Unifenas (Universide José do Rosario Velano). This private school had 18 undergraduate courses and an enrollment of 4,549 in 2005. There are graduate courses in animal science and health.
There were courses in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing among others.

Unifal (Universidade Federal de Alfenas). This public school had 15 undergraduate courses in dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy among others. Enrollment was 1,320 students in 2005. There are graduate courses in chemistry and pharmacy.

One of Brazil's largest artificial lakes, Furnas is located scant kilometres away to the north. It bathes 34 municipalities. Its waters are used for boating, jet-ski, swimming, and fishing. The lake attracts a great number of tourists to the region and the city is well served by hotels. In 2006 there were 18 hotels with approximately 1,200 rooms.