hello all--

well, this last week has been pretty exciting. I left the state of Rio, and am now in the city of Cachoeiro,Espírito Santo. Cachoeiro=sick. after being in campos for 4 months, this place is so so cool. this city is super super hilly, and we walk up all these crazy big hills, which has been kinda rough after being in flat campos. there is also a really big river that runs through the center of the city. i´ll talk about this more in a little bit. Cachoiero is also really hot. hotter than campos, i´ve heard which is crazy, considering that campos hit 110F a couple times. but anyways, yeah, its a hot hot furnace here. my house is also sweet. its right in the center of the city so we are close to everything. i´m in an apartment building, on the 5th floor, and so we also have a view of the mountains and stuff. i only live with my comp and not 4 missionaries, which is a bummer. however, my comp is hilarious so its really not that bad.


my comp´s name is Elder Cavalcante. yes, he is a brazilian, and yes he is crazy. the very first night, he told me that he sleep walks and talks, which is ironic, because last week i remember telling Elder Ekstrom that i want to have a comp who does crazy stuff like that. anyway, he does. my comp also skateboards. i found this out one day when we were walking on the bridge, and as we neared an emo kid, my comp called out to him, asked if he could see the skateboard, and then took off zooming. my comp isn´t that bad. he did a pretty cool manual, but it was mostly just hilarious. he is also black, which is awesome. i´d been hoping for a Negão, as they call them done here, and i got one. i´ll try to send you guys some pictures but i don´t know if this computer will let me. hopefully i´ll be able to....


Also, this past week we had a lot of rain. it rained straight for 2 solid days, and the river (which was really low when arrived), rose 10-12 feet during the night and they had to close one of the bridges becasue it was in danger of getting swept away (i have pics of this too, but i don´t know if you´ll see em this week). it was all chill with us, being that we live on the 5th floor of an apartment building, but the other missionaries live right on the river bank, and if the river had risen another 2-3 feet, then all their stuff would´ve been ruined. anyway. they were lucky.
also: yesterday (sunday), was the championship for the brazilian soccer league and Flamengo won. Flamengo is basically the bandwagon team that everyone here roots for (boooo flamengo, yeaaa São Paulo!). when they beat Grêmio yesterday, there was massive celebrating in the streets. on house is right in the middle of center, and a road about 20 yards from our building was blocked off and there were a ton of people there partying and celebrating, till one in the morning. the floor of our house was shaking because of the music and it was super loud and insane. it was just people getting drunk and going crazy all night long.    


also, this area is boomin. the members here are awesome. this past week we were visiting the home of an less-active family and found an 11-year-old boy who hasn´t been baptized, so we´ve got a baptizm this saturday, the 12th. woot woot! should be cool. we taught him everything he needs to know in one day (all the commandments), and now he´s ready to go and pumped for the baptism. we should have a bunch more on their way, soon.
anyways, this past week was really awesome. i´m super excited to be here in Cachoiro. hope you guys have a good week. the church is true. love,

Elder Tasso