Nathan's email from December 23

Subject: Feliz Natal
hello world, I'm dreaming of a very very wet Christmas. Brazil's underwater!!! Actually just parts of it is, the weather is actually very interesting. I put on my sunscreen at 10 o clock, the sun is blazing hot. We make it to lunch and by the time we finish eating and get outside I couldn't see blue, and we ran for home to get our umbrellas. By the time we reached home it started raining and it rained so hard for 20 minutes we couldn't get out of our house with or without umbrellas. (made Utah rain look like the sprinkler you put on your hose) but the forecast says Christmas will be wet.
Well now that I've bored you out with the forecast in Brazil, I'll let you know how things are going down here. Elder Richards and I are doing great, we keep finding new awesome people down here. It's funny elder Richards can make a contact and I've never seen anyone not stop lol its fun :D but its way cool. The problem is with the holidays everyone is traveling or the other common thing in Brazil is short term work at the shopping places during the holidays. So everyone's working or running to grandmas house lol. But we have found a few people in house including one lady which I would like to share with you. So we were walking down a road that I've never been on before and we pass the nicest house on the road. I look over at elder and say "imagine eating lunch at that house" he walked right up and rang the door bell, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. This was last Saturday, yesterday being Monday we taught her the first lesson and gave her a book of Mormon, it was really nice and the spirit was very strong there. She is active in another church and never lets other people into her house, but like I said elder Richards has a gift :D, maybe it wasn't elder that made it work, truly the spirit touches each of us so that every ear may hear the message of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
anywho that's all I've got for this week, I'll be calling home soon so I'll share more love then, ate mais meus amados!
Elder Nate Spencer

Brian's email from December 22

Subject: Merry Christmas to all
Here is one holiday that is celebrated all over the world, rain or shine, sun or snow! This is my first HOT Christmas and I cant say it feels right... lol I have to say I prefer a white christmas BUT whether the weather be hot or whether the weather be cold it is still a time to reflect on the year, remember our saviours birth and give more freely of ourselves. I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday, I send my love from Africa! Love,
Elder Brian Spencer

Brian's email from December 15

So some things gotta give. President Poulsen has changed some things in the mission as I think I mentioned previously. But with the change come trials. But now I feel like Thomas Edison, I have to find a thousand ways that won't work before I find the one that will.
So the past two weeks we put a lot of efforts into trying to advertise and promote the Christmas Devotional that the Church put on yesterday. We made Flyers and pamphlets and posted them all over town and handed them out as we tracted. We also asked every single one of our investigators to come. So the Christmas Devotional was fantastic but unfortunately not a single investigator was there to enjoy it... SHAME!
But Some good news! We did have a baptism yesterday which went flawlessly :D A brilliant little 9 year old girl was baptized and bore her testimony and made her grandmother cry :)
We originally had three people who were supposed to get baptized yesterday but only one made it all the way. There should be several others coming up in January. So Christmas is coming! I hope everyone has the Christmas spirit and is sharing the love Christ has given. Things here aren't white by any means, In fact its about 100 degrees and very dry! But it's still festive here, lots of fake Christmas trees and lights and such. So that's all from Africa, stay tuned for next time! Love you all
Elder Brian Spencer

Nathan's email from December 16

The American football players continue to break yardage on the ubirajara front, Satan's ahead by 1 million but our coach is waiting for the last play. We've found two new families that are running for the eternal goal, I've got faith they'll go all-the-way!!!
This week was awesome, today we got to go to the temple for the first time since like August, so that was cool. We're working hard and playing hard, its like a whole new ball game with an American comp, it's way fun any way you go at it though. Christmas is practically on us and Santa is awfully uncomfortable with his big wool coat on... I think the wool coat is better than adapting to the usual outwear of people here :D Just don't imagine fat Santa with a speedo...
We had a few really really spiritual moments this week that really touched a few people here, including me. We were teaching Evaldo and his friend Morelo who drinks his life away, we are now helping him stop as he comes to church as well. Sorry I'm outa time but I love you all and have a fantastic week, I'll talk more next week! Love you all merry Hanuka or something!"
Elder Nate Spencer