Opah!! Tudo Bem!
The computer here is being ridiculous and complicated so I hope this email sends and gets to the family. First off, its exciting hearing all about the elections back in the states and how close Romney and "Obamanation" are.
The elections here were pretty interesting. First off, they don't have debates here because everyone would probably start fighting and killing each other. Politics here is considered pretty dirty. There were 2 candidates for mayor of our city, "55" and "12" (they use numbers here more than the names), its like a gang, you walk up to someone to say hi and the first thing they ask is, are you 12? If your not, you just back up and walk away. For the last 3 months we had big cars driving around screaming incredibly obnoxious music of the certain number and name, the music for 12 was just a man screaming 12 over and over. The crazy thing about this election was that "12" (John Baleia or John Whale in English) was the mayor of a nearby city Barreiros and he stole a bunch of money. Everyone knew about it so eventually he was kicked out of the race, but of course, he put his wife in his place. So he was pretty much still in the race because his wife took his spot. Very tricky, in fact so tricky that everyone voted for her and "12" (the man that just stole from the other city) was elected.
One other thing that is different about here and Arizona is that the last day of the elections when people find out who wins, everyone changes to that number as if they had been voting for him all along, so they don't get killed. There is a huge party with the whole city and people riding and running around screaming, dancing and drinking (that was Sunday). Only extremely rich people can run for any position because all they do to win is buy votes and promise people things if they vote for them. Peoples votes have nothing to do with what they will do in office. I'm sorry to say that this has to do with the kind of people here in Sao Jose but most of Brazil is not like this. It's just a big party here all the time because of the beach and not a huge amount of educated people. BUT, (there is always a but) there are normal people here and we are teaching them the gospel to realize that the things that people do here are not good.
This week we baptized Karol finally (woohoo)! And Isabel we are still teaching and Jr. just needs to get married. We have a lot of other people but they just need to get to church. I feel like we have about 50 people here who know the church is true, they just need to come to church!
Elder Cavalcanti leaves in a week to go home, so that's going to be pretty weird without him and dealing with all the branch stuff. Our branch president will be out of town too for the next two weeks to Sao Paulo and he will be able to see Elder Cavalcanti get married on the 27th there in Sao Paulo! Also our 1st councilor lives in another town so from now on he will be staying with the group from our branch that meets in his town (Tamandaré). So it will be interesting with me and my new companion taking care of this branch. Lucky I understand and know everything I need to know about how to take care of the branch so all will be well. One of the most important things is just to have faith that all will work out and be bold.
Half of my message just erased so ill try to remember what I already wrote-
Saturday a member and his capueira group came to the church to demonstrate capueira, which is a martial art that consists of fighting and dancing. They use cool weird instruments that are being played by crazy Brazilians as others are flying in the air fake fighting. It's super cool and all the kids and families in the neighborhood that heard came and watched with us. Fun stuff! I took a couple of videos.
This week was like a lot of others with a lot of walking, teaching, walking, sweating, teaching and running around. My testimony today is of the power one has when righteous, miracles happen, but not until after the trial of your faith. Key key key, if people REALLY REALLY understood where true power came from they would join the church of Christ.
I love you all and I'm thankful for the wonderful family and friends I have at home.
Tchauzinho! (little bye--- it really doesn't make sense in English-- haha)
Come amor,
Elder LeSueur
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