Day 238

We managed to watch all of conference at church this weekend. In the 2 hour intervals, we spent our time passing by the houses of all of our investigators (with the help of members who have cars).

The biggest news is that the Church of Jesus Christ is moving their focus one less hour at Sunday services, to more time in general at home. I imagined millions of people celebrating at the same exact instant!

Here in Brasil, the presidential elections are on the same day as conference. The Brasilian missionaries all have to go to some place that does the voting work (school/etc.) and waive the vote because they´re living outside of their home state.

This year, the elections are a bit different. The two front-running candidates are Bolosnaro and Haddad. Bolsonaro is known as the "Trump of Brasil" and was stabbed a few weeks ago right in the middle of a large crowd by someone with a knife. Also is a current reserve military officer (and the vice-president is a general).

The other candidate is basically a stand-in for Lula from Partida Trabalhista (Worker's Party), which judging from the name I assume is socialist/communist, they even use a sort of red flag and star motif like China. Lula himself can't run because he's still in prison for about 8 more years; during his term he successfully robbed literally everyone in Brasil, something about skimming LOTS of money off of public projects and every other scheme you can imagine.

Anyway, beyond that I have no idea about brasilian politics, but yesterday the country found out that everyone is going to vote *again* next Sunday! You need 51% to win, and the first round of voting is all of the 30-something parties competing together. Bolsonaro got 47% and Haddad 27%(?).

So on the second round it's just first and second place, Bolsonaro and Haddad! It'll be interesting. Voting in brasil is *required* by law, and those who don't vote pay a fine. Also, between 5PM Saturday and 5PM Sunday nobody is allowed in public to speak about the candidates, radio/tv ads are also prohibited, etc. I have no idea how that's enforced in practice on the streets.

Anyway, I was glad to be able to watch all of conference in portuguese and understand. We have an American Elder here who's been in the mission field for 5 weeks now, and I remember how that was... In a while, we'll get the conference issue in english and portuguese and it'll all work out.

We brought 4 of our investigators this weekend, happily. We're working steadily toward a marked date, doing everything within our reach, and I think we'll manage this week.

Love you all, gotta go

Elder Hopkinson