Brian's email from August 18

Subject: Spaghetti is messy

Yes... I spilled a whole plate of spaghetti on my lap at a dinner appointment and yes go ahead and laugh, all the other missionaries did! lol good times!
Well I now have a new companion, his name is Elder Chavez from San Diego California. He goes home on Saturday so I am just his companion for a week. My new companion will be here on Sept 3rd. Chavez is a stud though, he works so hard. We were tracting last night until after 8 o'clock! and we were able to find and teach LOTS of people. Life has been kinda tough as far as some of our investigators :S I think we might be losing one of our best investigators, Molley. She was doing amazing and reading the Book of Mormon, she is almost all the way through Alma and she has come to church several times, but she just asked us to stop coming :( I don't even know why, we have one last appointment on Wednesday with her. I think she may have talked with her pastor... But I don't know.
We still are working with many hopefuls and it's only a matter of time before baptisms come. We are working a lot more with members lately and that always helps. well that's about it for the week. Until next week! love you all
Elder Brian Spencer

Nathan's email from August 5

Caramba! what a week! Well actually I'll start with Sunday cause that was the best! It was fast and testimony meeting and one of the most spiritual sacrament meetings of my life, actually I think it was the most spiritual.
So those youth I'm always talking about... they all bore their testimonies, but they didn't just get up and say I know the church is true, they gave heart felt testimonies with their conversion stories, I was close to tears. and better yet Erick and Raphael, two awesome brothers, finally convinced their parents to take a few minutes off work to come. They came and heard their kids bear testimony and also saw them administering the sacrament! Caramba if that's not a powerful message for a parent I don't know what is!
But alas, Sunday night we found out about transfers and the elder AssiSpencer duo was broken, I'm now in a new city, Piratininha, very close to my other area but I'm opening this area and that means for all of you who are unfamiliar, that I'm completely lost :D Isn't that fun! No but I'm excited cause I've heard tons of good stuff about this ward and the last missionaries left it in good condition.
I'm now with elder Santana, he's a pretty cool kid. I don't know much about him yet so I'll fill you in on those details next time, but he seems kinda excited about missionary work so I'm sure we'll get along just great :D haha
Well someone just said something and I wasn't listening, so my comp tried to speak English to explain, cause he thought I just didn't understand, thus confirming he can say five and minute with a wonderful accent. haha perfect :D Oh I was at my new house a little while back and its awesome, much more roomy than the last house and there's only the two of us. the washing machine looks like it works so that'll save on a lot of work, hurray!
Anywho I'll have more to say next week about my new area cause as of yet I don't know anything, but tune in next time to hear all about it. lol
Thank you all for your love and support!
Elder Nate Spencer

Brian's email from August 4

This week has been the best one for a long while! Nothing incredible happened, just lots of good stuff and just a good week. We found several solid investigators this week, and guess how we found them! Tracting! Ya it was pretty cool. One guy we found is an old crazy man, but one of the good kinds :) He is really smart and knows his Bible but he isn't against new revelation and others views, so he listens to us very well and is willing to accept whatever truth God will reveal to him. The reason why I say he is a crazy old man is cause of the way he looks and talks. haha He is bald except some white hair jetting out the sides of his head, (like a mad scientist) and when he talks, he is very loud and enthusiastic! but I like him.
We also found another man, and the first thing he said to us was he wasn't Christian, but he was willing to listen nonetheless. Well it turns out he is very familiar with the Bible but because of the inconsistencies in the Bible and in Christianity he has given up hope. Well, it just so happens that our message answered many of his questions and I'm confident that it will continue to make sense to him. Especially if we can get him to pray about it and read the Book of Mormon. I always love finding potential priesthood holders who can help lead in the church.
Then we found another two ladies who are sisters, and the one sister, Neli, started crying because she was just about to give up hope in Christ and she asked us to come back and to help her find her faith again. She seems very promising and I'm looking forward to working with her.
So those are just three of the people we found this week. It's times like those that really give you the boost to keep working :D Tender Mercies, just keep your eyes open and its impossible not to see them.
Thats a wrap I suppose!
Love Elder Brian Spencer

Brian's email July 28

Subject: we have located your pants
Well, first to explain the subject.. My father sends me emails and apperently with yahoo you can generate random subjects. and this was the most recent one and it made me laugh so I used it.
So life here is going very well, this week was great. We had a young man who we have been teaching for a couple weeks now ask us to be baptized. his name is Kagiso [kah-he-so] He is only about 19 but he has been very interested since day one with us. He studies the bible and reads from the book of Mormon and has pointed out to us that they dont conflict with eachother. ;) smart kid huh?! I am pretty sure he has a testimony of the Book of Mormon but we are a bit worried about his testimony of the restored gospel. He hasnt come to church yet and he still goes to his "good news bible" church :s AHHH some people amaze me with the churches they go to! so we are going to focus a bit on the restoration with him before we go much further.
So we showed up to another investigator, Molley, on thursday. We were going to teach her about the law of tithing, and when we showed up she had an envelope sitting on the table we sit around. And when I told her what we were going to talk about, she said "oh I was just thinking about that earlier today" and she handed me the envelope! so we taught her about the law of tithing. and on sunday she came to church with another envelope! I had already givin the previous one to the bishop and he wanted to sit down and talk with her but unfortunately she had to leave early so he never got the chance. This same investigator has been reading the book of Mormon and is now almost finished with Alma! And amazingly enough she hasnt committed to baptism yet, she is still a little commited to her other bizaar church. ha, but im sure it wont be long now, She is starting to make the change, and Im praying she will accept the commitment soon.
YUP! thats life, Im sure some other cool stuff happend but... im done writing :D Love you all!
Elder Brian Spencer

Brian's email July 21

It has been a wonderful week, everything seems to be slowly progressing, which is good. We have found some new people, taught some old people and played with some young people :) Little kids are fun to play with, they are so easily entertained too. They are so bored during the day that they get very clever. I have been introduced to several games that little kids just make up to keep themselves entertained. One is like jacks except they find 11 rocks and they scratch a little box into the dirt lol. yup good times. We had 5 of our solid investigators come to church on sunday! that was awesome and one, his name is Thabiso really wants to be baptized now. He has come to church for four weeks now and we teach him every saturday. When we taught him last time he told us about some struggles in his life, cause his mom and sister both passed away in the last couple years. We were able to teach him about the plan of salvation. He told us afterwards, that this gospel is answering all his questions and he feels more relieved everytime we teach him. The next day he went to church and in priesthood the lesson was about Joseph Smiths trials with losing most of his children and life after death. It was perfect for him and he even contributed to the class. Another one of our investigators showed up for the first time and he just lost his first child who was like 6 months old and so I think the lesson really helped him as well. Just shows the Tender Mercies of the Lord. He really is there and hears and answers prayers. So many times we get "lucky" or a nice "coincidence" occurs but I am convinced that they are all tender mercies from the Lord as elder Bednar talked about in his conference talk. I am blessed to see them everyday, Always be on the lookout for them and you will realize how much the Lord is involved in our lives.
Love you all,
Elder Brian Spencer

Nathan's email - July 15

haha oh what a beautiful day! So its officially winter down here, that doesn't mean snow everyone, just means that while the sun shines and makes you feel hot, you don't sweat as profusely! yay! haha. But really its great down here not just cause of the weather. This last week has been a spiritual high and temporal low. Monday night there was an accident where Cidinha, a 9 year old recent convert that loves music and smiling, passed away. I had said before that drivers in Brazil are crazy, well this is a classic example. All I know about the story is her mother went into the store to get some medicine and told her to stay there, she wanted some candy and started to cross the street to the candy store, a bus didn't see her and when her mother came out and saw the flashing lights she found her daughter. Cidinha lives with her mother, I'm not sure if it's her blood mother or not, but they love each other and live for one another. Literally whenever Cidinha prayed all she would say is thank you for my mom and please bless my mom. I never saw them separated and now Eloza, her mother, is struggling with the loss. We´ve been visiting every day and teaching her and the rest of her family more about the plan of salvation and the love of our Savior for children and yes it helps but in another way nothing can take away her loss at this moment. It's such a sad time.
On a happier note, we will be having 5 baptisms this Saturday. The Lord truly is blessing the youth down here and they aren't just sitting back, they´re sharing. As I said last week we've been going around with recent converts to go teach, well our pool of investigators just keeps growing as friends call in more friends and such it's so wonderful to see. This one young man, Raphael, he'll be baptized this Saturday and already he invited two of his friends to hear our message, and he gave the closing prayer asking Heavenly Father to bless his friends to have open hearts and be able to be baptized into the true chruch of Jesus Christ. Wow.
So time here seems to be locked in fast forward, our transfer is already half over and we've still got tons to do down here :s But i'm sure what we leave the next missionaries will pick up on (we're pretty sure i'll be leaving, seeming how I've been here for 6 months!) Lets see what more, our english class is growing exponentially, haha its soo cool, we started out with just like 5 or 6 when I got here and now we've got almost all our recent converts coming and so its packed! We're going to have a party this Saturday as well where we get to teach these poor soccer players how to play baseball... I still need to find a bat... haha that'll be fun.
Oh yeah, so Saturday for lunch we had the lovely experience of eating chicken feet! (thank you Brian...) lol they saw Brians picture with him eating a chicken foot and decided that twins need to share every experience. lol So thats me in a week everyone, thank you all for your love and support, our Savior loves us and wants us to be happy so smile and do him proud! Families are the best, never take advantage of the one you've got, go find someone in your family right now and just give them a hug or something :D Thanks again. tchau tchau!
Elder Nate Spencer
Elder Nate Spencer

Nathan's email, July 8

Hello todo mundo!
The 4th came and went in the big city of Diadema, and maybe just maybe it gave someone here a reason to buy an extra drink that night lol. But it was cool I wore my blue tie and cried independence from the rooftops...almost. But this week was fantastic, we met our new mission president and he's awesome! I had the opportunity to have an interview with him yesterday and there's a spirit about him that testifies he truly was called of God to do this work.

Anywho there's this little thing called people searching for truth, it's a wonderful idea some people have and our only problem is finding them. But, occasionally they search just right and walk into our chapel on Sunday just like a mother and her son did! haha this really nice lady and her 13 year old son live around town somewhere (actually in Centro, not my area too bad) but they had seen our church a few times and were interested in what we were teaching. Well she immediately fit in perfectly with the relief society as her son Deigo was welcomed into the young mens classroom, elder Assis and I couldn't help but to just grin from ear to ear as two strangers fell instantly in love with church and the gospel. But thats only the beginning of the miracles. This last Sunday almost all of our investigators came to church, it was a festa, everyone is loving it and anxious for their baptisms. I don't know how to explain it, but sometimes people are looking for miracles, like seeing a mountain move or dividing the waters, but miracles happen all the time as normal people open their hearts to the gospel and accept its message of peace.
For example 3 teenage girls we were teaching, the first time we were there we set them straight as to why we were teaching them because they were being.... how might I say teenage girls. but the next time we went there was a completely different feel about them, they had read the Book of Mormon and prayed to know it was true. All of them gained a person witness and as we've been teaching them and their parents it's been amazing to see them change, everything, they have a new light in their eyes, they are dressing differently, they are literally repenting and receiving the light of Christ in their eyes. I love the gospel and my Savior Jesus Christ, if not for him all would be for naught. But when we find him the change it can make in our lives is incredible.
May we all strive to find our Savior and continually take the steps to bring ourselves closer to him, thank you all for your love and support, até next week!

Elder Nate Spencer