9/21/11 its only through making commitments, or covenants that they can receive the blessings and salvation

haha comedy, elder huntsman. i will look for him. havent met him yet. (Brad just found out that one of his friends from high school also has a son serving in Belo Horizonte!) but i did have an elder huntman in my district in wyoming haha. BYU is stupid. i think im gonna transfer to Utah when i get home. haha jk. but they do suck at football. why did kathy have mom read my story? did it have anything to do with the lesson? haha that was a really cool experience though. its just sad that nobody wants to make commitments here. were getting people to church, and FAMILIES too which is really cool and rare, but everyone is scared of commitment. and its only through making commitments, or covenants that they can receive the blessings and salvation which is really sad. i think im going to start being more blunt on that topic, i am sometimes, but not real often. coles papers are in?? sweet! good to hear. (My hubby and some other Young Men leaders took the Priests to Conference a few years ago and Brad was telling him that they have all gone on missions etc... I am going to post a pic of them at the end of this email) let me know what happens. and do you know about justin too? i told him he needed to go a few times, but we kinda lost contact. (he and his family moved) the only one that didnt go is eric, but he is married in the temple which is really good too! haha anyway, ill share more in moms email. love ya pops. or should i say bishop pops.
Elder Bergquist
Cole(papers are in, waiting to hear), Justin (moved), Brennen (North Carolina), Ricky (Honduras), Sam (Portugal), Collin (Alabama), Dallin (Brasil), Kyle (Columbia), Mike (Florida), Tanner (Brasil), Eric (convert and married in the temple!) The 1st young man is who they were talking about whose papers are in! WE ARE PROUD OF OUR YOUNG MEN!

Mamãe! como vai?
you say everything is boring and then write a letter like 8 pages long haha. doida. so, just for future reference, dont ever send a picture with anything related to u of u again mmka? and you can go ahead and tell devin and diana that they are disowned. tell them that the scriptures say to raise our kids in righteousness and show them the right way... i know hes not born yet, but uhh...looks like theyve already gone wrong. aimee knows where its at. (FYI, he is referring to the BYU U of U game... Dallin is on scholorship to BYU and his brother attends U of U and his wife is pregnant and they took this picture and said "Baby is a Utes fan" hahaha)

tanner comes home this week no? (Tanner is one of Dallin's best friends, he actually comes home in 8 day! He is serving in Rio!)

So, your ward signs up to go on splits with you guys? yes

Do they sign up to feed you? yes

Is the food the same in every area you've been in? yes haha. pretty much, its rice beans and some kind of meat and sometimes other things to go along with it.

Do you have anyone ready for baptism? not at the moment no.

Who are you teaching? everybody we can ha. i dont know if its me or what it is, but nobody we teach can make a commitment to save their life. literally, their spiritual life. its really sad, were working on improving a lot to make sure its not our fault that they arent understanding or something. but the work has been a little hard for that reason

What are the stats that you have to turn in every week? stats? haha baptisms, confirmations, people in church, progressing, with baptismal date, references, lessons with members, other lessons, new investigators and maybe a couple more. i cant remember if i missed any, but if you look in the planners that i sent home it has the weekly report thing, just dont judge me. haha

How many lessons did you teach this week? i dont remember, somewhere around 30

How many of them will you be going back to teach again? 1 ha. were only aloud to go back if: they go to church, or have a baptismal date.

Did you have any investigators at church? yeah we had a FAMILY! 4 people. come to find out, the parents arent married :( so they couldnt get baptized, but they say theyre going to start on their marriage papers

What book are you reading now? i just finished the book of mormon. im reading our search for happiness and studying the Doctrine and Covenants

How big is your ward? on the papers i think its about 200, in church its about 75 on average

How did your talk go? its this week

What was your topic? i think im gonna speak on revelation and talk about preparing for conference

How are you feeling with the language now? pretty good. its weird, a lot of times i say words that i dont even know i know, but they come out and make sense, i guess from reading and hearing other people say them, idk my bff jill

Anything funny happen this week? just that some lady threw rocks at us. no big deal. oh and when i say rocks, im not talking pebbles, like bigger than a softball. she was chuckin them and pushed my comp. its kinda sad how ignorant some people are, but dont worry, we went by the next day and left a pamphlet in her mailbox. shell be baptized soon, hahah

When did you feel the Spirit this week? im feeling the spirit a lot in my study. its true that we should feast upon the word. im learning that the more i study the more i want to study and learn more and unfold the mysteries of God. an hour before the mission to study was forever, now when the hour ends i always want to study more ha

What are you learning? a lot of things haha. everything. learning a lot about the language, and how its important to study constantly and keep learning new things. its impossible to be saved in ignorance.
anyway, gotta go. love you all. especially you mom!
um abraço!
Elder Bergquist

Here are the pictures he sent this week... I have no idea why he is taking pics of the Catholic churches, maybe he thinks they look cool.... haha



Silly boy... doesn't he know we want HIM in the pictures??!!!

9/14/11 Same Power today as in times of Old!

you can see one or two of the huge catholic churches i think. theres like 5 of them that size and its kind of a tourist city because of how old it is. one of the catholic churches just has 2 of the walls left and its like a tourist site now.




a pic of fat me. wow. kinda ridiculous how much weight ive gained. (I am going to use this picture for his plaque!)
guilherme's baptism. his mom is a member and shes getting married to this guy and then we'll baptise him too

me and elder martinez

Olá gente!
how is everybody?? im doing greeat here. first before i forget. use the scripture Devin and Derek both have on their plaques, or if thats too dumb (im not really sure, i kinda lost my regular judgement skills being a missionary in another country, but i do like tradition and i know i like that scripture) or use D&C 35:13,15. i hope everyone is doing well! you said something about sending pics of di, but i didnt see any anywhere, and whats up with chads curly hair. hes got a fro and its super dark. weird. it reminds me of mikey spaletas hair when we were young, just gotta bleach the tips haha. other than that, to answer some of dads questions, BYU is stupid when it comes to football, thats the only answer to that haha and my district is 8 missionaries. 2 of which are argetines. kinda weird to have people from other countries besides brasil and the us. and my LD and LZ are both american. last time i saw the assistants they were american. maybe one was brasilian, i cant remember. and i think we have interviews with pres at the end of this transfer. i didnt have mine last time because i was 6 hours away from BH. right now were about 40 minutes from BH on bus. and now for moms questions

How do you like your new area? its really pretty, lots of hills to hike haha and with the afternoon sun its not the grrreatest, but i need to lose weight so its all good hahaha. and being a city that i guess just had its 300th birthday its very catholic, but were still finding a lot of people that are willing to hear the message of the restoration

How do you like your new companion? i like him a lot ha. hes a singer, like semi professional, you can look him up on myspace lucianoemanuel. hes really good so thats cool ha. he teaches really well despite the fact that half of it is in spanish still haha theyre so similar that he forgets to translate or change the words to portuguese haha.

Tell us about him! oh and hes 25 years old ha.

How is your new ward? theyre really good. really good with missionary work. they do like we did in our ward with the missionaries. they give a us a few minutes in priesthood to mark days and times to go out with the members. like 3 a week on average.

Do the members take care of you/feed you? yeah were doing just fine.

Do you have anyone ready for baptism? not at the moment

How many lessons did you teach this week? i dont remember, around 30

Did the last Elders leave you a list to go see/teach? just Guilherme (they baptized him, see pic above), Weder (who they baptised but still needs to be confirmed, but fell back into smoking) and one other kid that we never found at home.

Did you do any tracting? nope. none. haha yes! thats pretty much all we do. this ward is pretty good with references though too.

Referrals? see above. haha weve taught like 4 reference families so far, none have accepted baptism yet though.

Did you find any new people to teach? everyday hahaa

I have been meaning to ask you... do you have blisters? right now no. im doing pretty good.

How are your socks? Need more? nope i still have like 2 packs that arent opened yet.

Did you get the pic of Diana last week? (she is due Dec. 17th) nope

Did you pick a scripture for your plaque? yup

Did you take another pic for me? yup

Did you bare your testimony Sunday? yup. obvio. haha and i have a talk on the 25th. my comp spoke last week. but at least this time i have a bit of warning to prepare unlike in alfenas where i would find out 3 minutes before hand haha

When did you feel the Spirit leading you or teaching you this week? oh man. this is a good one. you might wanna fasten your seat belts haha. so we went out with the second councilor of the ward. he told us hed have a reference, but didnt, so we hadnt planned, so we went in the church and said a prayer. he asked that we could find a family that would accept us and that wed be able to bare testimony of the experience later on. (a goal of this ward is to baptise a family of 5 before december) so we walked out of the church and we started walking toward the street that came to mind, when we saw a recent convert walking by so we talked to her. she was going to the hospital to be with her dad. we went with to give a blessing and on the way Jefferson (2nd councilor) said were going to visit my friend at this house afterward. so we came back after the hospital and they let us in. (theres your story of guidance haha) then we started teaching this family. Jeffersons friend and 3 of his sisters and a daughter. while joão's (joão is jeff's friend) drunk brother babbled to himself in the other room. as we came to the end of the great apostasy and were about to start talking about the restoration, the drunk comes in and starts asking questions and yelling and getting mad and smoking. possessed by something, he tried to interrupt before we could get to the restoration. the same as satan tried to do that spring morning in 1820. he knows the power and spirit that go along with the restoration of the priesthood and church of Christ. so after about a 5 minute intermission in the lesson, as soon as i saw an opening in his babbling i jumped in and started talking about the restoration. he was still talking so i had to talk over him for most of the time. but the second i started in with "vi um pilar de luz...." he went silent. i saw his face in the corner of my vision, his mouth snapped shut, and then his lips started moving, but nothing came out. he couldnt speak. or should i say, the spirit that possessed him couldnt make him speak. just as satan fled on that spring morning, this evil spirit was bound by the power of the the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith. but the second i finished with the first vision, he started in again and we had to talk over him. it was a very very powerful testimony to me of the truthfulness of the restoration. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, and i know the Lords missionaries still have power over evil spirits just as the apostles of old. Satan has no power compared to the power of God. I love this work and i love you guys. until next week.
Um abraço,
Elder Bergquist

9/7/11 No mail...

We were bummed when the day ended and there was NO email from Elder Bergquist! I found out from the Missionary Mom's email list that it was Independence Day in Brasil...