Francisco Fernando Filho (Tetéo)
In one of these occasions a brother agonized four days and four nights, until his death, and Tetéo didn’t leave not even for a minute. It was, consequently, four days and four nights that Tetéo spent awake. therefore, it is then presumed that the origin of the nickname Tetéo, already brought from the childhood, was given by the fact of sleeping little, with base in a bird typically native of northeastern Brazil that doesn't sleep, only naps, and it is called Tetéo.

The words of Mestre Conselheiro Luiz Mendes on Tetéo.
(E-mail sent by the sister Débora Carvalho Pereira Gabrich - CICLUMIG)

"I met Francisco Fernando Filho, also known as Tetéo and for some years I enjoyed his company, always side by side, and we got along very well, so much in the material and spiritual sense.

He was born in the Saint Lucia day (12/13/1917). He was a charismatic man and wherever he was he transmitted peace, happiness and optimism. He laughed and made the others laugh while telling his stories of the northeast, of his childhood and youth as a person from Ceará, of the city São Luís de Ceira (“caboclo from the hill’s foot").

He arrived in the Acre by the 60’s, already with a wife and some children, and settled in a colony, making a living in the agriculture, very close to Mestre Raimundo Irineu Serra, reason which in 63 he drank Daime for the first time from the hands of Mestre himself, liking it and embracing it with all he had, entering definitively in the doctrine of the Santo Daime. It was exactly at this time that our encounter happens inside the session, because I was also joining the same battalion, a reason to facilitate us to be good friends and brothers.

Tetéo was a serious man with tenderness, courageous, decided, who liked to drink the Daime and didn't have fear on doing it. Everything that was needed he sought in the Daime, to the point of in certain occasions find himself alone, as he mention in one of his hymns, “I am inviting smiling and with me nobody wants to go.”

Tetéo, by his way of being, was a humanitarian person; he liked to do charity. At the more difficult moments that were lived at that time, we could count, certainly, with his presence and support, because he insisted on being side by side. If he was spiritually resistant, he was also physically. He slept little and it was just a brother or a sister had gotten sick that he was always ready, offering his vigil, which was very good. He wouldn’t abandon the sick for any moment. In one of these occasions a brother agonized four days and four nights, until his death, and Tetéo didn’t leave not even for a minute. It was, consequently, four days and four nights that Tetéo spent awake. therefore, it is then presumed that the origin of the nickname Tetéo, already brought from the childhood, was given by the fact of sleeping little, with base in a bird typically native of northeastern Brazil that doesn't sleep, only naps, and it is called Tetéo.

He was one of the men of trust of padrinho Irineu, standing out in the doctrine with hierarchical powers. From a guardian he became the general commander of the masculine

battalion, being just after nominated Adviser of the presidency of the beloved brother Leôncio Gomes Da Silva. By the way, the friendship between them both was very beautiful - what one would say and does, the other would corroborate, and to the point of the president, who never received a hymn, say that Tetéu's hinário was also his.

After the passage of Mr. Leôncio to the spiritual realm, happened a simultaneous situation where Tetéo, who was already commander, was also acclaimed president.

On June 21st of 1985 he disincarnated, being greatly missed and leaving behind many memories and a very beautiful hinario, constituted of 132 hymns (more seven hymns that he offered as a gift). I feel proud to have met him and his virtues and firmness are an example for all the ones who follow in this path of the Light and of Love."