4.30.12

my dearest family,

awesome week! Probably my last time going to Lima until I end. Crazy. This week was super sentimental haha. I am trying so hard not to but I keep thinking of how much im gonna hate leaving Peru. But the good thing is that it also makes me wanna work even harder.
This Sunday was amazing!! We had 4 people in sacrament meeting. Two young guys named Kevin and Anthony, they are gonna have their baptism this Sunday. Also two guys around 25 years old. Ones name is Ricardo, he is moving to Lima on the 10th but wants to get baptized with us here before he leaves so we are gonna baptize him the ninth. He's awesome. And guess where he's gonna live in Lima ? VITARTE! I am so excited for him. The ward is gonna love him. And guess who was the other guy that came! Jonathan! Your prayers are working, thank you so much. He's so awesome. He's trying so hard to change and he wants to get baptized the 19th still. Keep praying for him and the two other investigators we have named Rosa and Rosillo. They are two ladies around 25 years old also and are amazing people. I know they will receive a testimony as we continue to teach them and they said when they do they will get baptized. For real this area is amazing, the work Is so awesome and I feel like there are so many people that have been waiting for me and my companion to find them.
Well as you might know by now, there's bad news here in Mantaro. Biliter got changed :(. He's super sad, I am too - but I told him its for the best Even tho I am pretty bummed. There's a good chance that Norris could come as a zone leader but we will just have to see. As far as to what you could send in packages…ha-ha beef jerky is awesome, I love pics like always. Nothing much, just as many snacks as you can shove in there. Licorice would be sick. Well that’s all I got for this week.
I love you guys sooo much but I don’t wanna see you for another 3 months. Tell Logan he needs to be careful. His arm needs to be in tip top shape for when I get home. Tell Coleton I just cant wait to destroy him. Tell Karleigh to keep strong. I know all this work is probably hard but she will be glad she did it afterwards. hang in there kar !
Love you all so much!
Elder Paolacci

4.23.12

Greaaaatttt week! Jauja is so awesome! Me and my comp are having so much success. I am so glad I have been sent to this area. It’s a really different experience not being a zl anymore. Its actually been really weird for me. But the truth is I now have time to study and work. And we are seeing so many miracles. We have about 10 people preparing themselves for baptism in the month of May. I feel like every person I meet here has been prepared especially for me. It is sooo cool. We are also helping the ward out a lot. The missionaries before lost their trust and when we got here they were super cold and barely talked to us. But things have completely changed. 7 of our 8 new investigators this week were references. I am loving it here and I am super excited to finish my mission here and finish baptizing.
Oh so I opened the package!!!! I loved it. Especially the usb and the memory card! That was definitely inspired!
Oh something that I forgot to tell you last week! There's a new north American that entered this change named Elder Chase from Scottsdale North Stake. And we started talking and he didn’t know any of my friends, so I asked him if he knew Don Bluth, and he was like ya I did plays at his house…..hahahah. so I asked him if he knew Coleton. And he said the funniest thing ever. He was like hmmmm is he the kid that everyone called cole train? Oh my goodness, I straight almost died from laughing so hard. So you gotta ask cole train if he remembers him.
Funny huh
Oh ya today I am going to Lima ….again…. 3 times in one month. Just happens that there's a district leader consejo this week. First time in over a year I have been to one. What luck huh
So ya I have a favor. I would like for you guys to pray for one of my investigators. His name is Jonathan. He's about 25 and he has so many desires to change his life. Our lesson with him was soooo powerful and he accepted to prepare for baptism the 19 of may. But his friend that’s a member told us that his friends talked him into getting drunk on Saturday. He called her Sunday morning crying. It is gonna be a hard change for him but we know he can do it. Gracias!
Love you guys sooo much. I loved seeing the pics of you guys and Maggie! Hope you have a great week!
Elder Paolacci
PS - pics from right now. my first release letter :)  

4.16.12

Letter time!!!!!

Well kind of a couple new things to word you guys in on. First off, my new area is Jauja in the zone Mantaro. So doing the math that makes Elder Biliter my ZL and luckily enough I am his DL. Way awesome. Also, Capps is now comps with my first kid Elder Parade. Haha they are going to be my favorite companionship In the zone. My area is about an hour outside of Huancayo and is super pretty, but also super cold. It’s a great area to train in. It’s the area Sheridan started in. my new kids name is Elder Janco (like hancock but just hanco). He is awesome, he is from Argentina - so I am gonna try and perfect my Argentinan accent. I tell everyone I meet here that I am from argentina at first and they always believe me (a lot of Italians in Argentina and guess what - I can kinda speak Spanish). So now I will be able to trick them even better - haha.

Well we are actually opening the area in Jauja right now. Huge disadvantage. Joke - it is awesome. We have a lot of people that we found this week that want to prepare for baptism. I am really excited to work here. My goal is starting in May baptize every week until I finish. Like 12 weeks in a row it would be. Wish me luck.

So to answer your questions

No Madsen is not training, he was at our training because he is the new personal secretary.

Yes my package is here but I haven’t opened it yet

So ya the training we had in Lima was awesome. I got to hang with a kid from my group that I haven’t seen my whole time in the field. His name is Elder Quiroga. He was like my first latin buddy in the CCM. We are seriously like twins haha I love that kid. He is in the other zone in Huancayo now so I will get to see him every once in a while.

Well I gotta write President a good letter today and fill him in on everything here.

So thats all I got, love you guys! How is the Book of Mormon reading going ? Time is short.

Enjoy the pictures. Until next week

Elder Paolacci

4.9.12

hey so I don't have a whole lot of time to write today. I have been trying to download pics, but its not working. Sorry !!! I promise a good letter next week. I will have lot's of info to share.

quick sum up of the week. Monday we took off to lima for Consejo. Had a great time chillin with all my buds in the office house.

haha we took about 100 shake your face pics. Rider is gonna make me a cd and I will send it to you. 


Consejo was awesome. It was my last :(. I am seriously going to miss it, but my time as ZL is done and I am soooooo excited to train. We didnt get back to our area until Thursday because there was a strike in La Oroya and none of the buses could make it back to provincia. Then on Friday afternoon we took off to Pampas again to take the stuff out of the room because they closed the area. We came back Saturday with all the stuff. Sunday I went to Huancavelica to do a baptismal interview. got back at like 7:30 pm and I got a call and told that I would be training and had to travel to Lima at 10pm. Things kinda exploded there for a sec because I hadn't packed anything and we where also about to start making BUFFALO WINGS with the pensh. So instead of stressing I decided we should cook and enjoy our time with Patti and her family and I am going be able to go back and pack because apparently I am not gonna be too far from Huancayo. I have no idea exactly where yet but it shouldn't be too far. Maybe I will even be in Biliter's zone and he will be my zl. So I traveled all last night and got to lima at 7am. oh ya, so I just did the math and in the last 2 weeks I have traveled over 50 hours in bus. crazy huh.
Spending my p-day today with Elder Edwards (he goes home Wednesday) We are going to buy jerseys. That is cool you will be at his homecoming.
well thats the summary. hope you all had an awesome Easter.
love you all!
Elder Paolacci

3.26.12

FAMILIAAAA!!!!!
Well I am gonna try and type as fast as i can, lots of stuff this week!
Well just to let you guys know my return date is officially the 25th now. Not sure if I will be able to fly home with Rider but president said I can pick the date. So the 25th it is. That also means that I only have 4 months left ahhhhhh crazy huh.


Well this week was awesome. Monday we had a huge game of soccer between the zones. (Paolacci / Biliter now that was fun) Lets just say my zone is the BOMB! Haha totally won, and definitely played soccer the best I have ever played in my life. Peru my be rubbing off on me. But don’t worry I have also learned humility down here too. 


Tuesday we had a district meeting which was awesome. We had some really cool practices on how to be more direct in our lessons, a lot of our missionaries are having trouble teaching with power and authority so this totally helped them out a bit. 


Wednesday, Elder Avalos (one of the AP's & one of my comps in La Oroya) came to Huancayo and we got stuff ready for the conference with President, that’s when the fun began haha. We had to wait at a bus station until 2 in the morning waiting for some missionaries that were coming from Huánuco to have interviews with President. Don’t know if you’ve heard but there has been some struggles here in the mission and a couple missionaries have been sent home. It seems as though we are going through a transformation. It is really tough because we are finding out a lot of stuff about a lot of missionaries and one of the kids that went home was one of my buddies. It is super sad, and really hard. But it is for the best of the mission. After all of this passes the mission will be so much better. It is just hard because we saw President that night and he just seemed destroyed. This has been super rough on him. He loves all his missionaries and truly desires for each of us to be the very best we can be. But despite all of that he goes through he keeps being one of the most amazing men I have ever known. How grateful I am for him in my life. 

The conference on Thursday was AMAZING. President and Sister Ardila focused alot on repentance and being integrated missionaries. President also taught us how we need to declare our purpose as missionaries. He shared a couple experiences with us that he's had in the last couple months. He's gone to various investigators in the mission and the first thing he says is "Hello I am President Ardila and I am here to baptize you" haha crazy huh. Well guess what. It works. He's proselyted a total of 20 hours in the last month and has had 4 baptisms. If we do the math he kills us as far as baptizing goes. But the truth is that we can all have the same success, we just need to make sure that people know why we are there, to baptize, nothing less, nothing more. He taught us something really cool from a set of verses that we always read as missionaries. He read from John 3: 1-5. And taught that we are here so people can ENTER Gods kingdom, not only so they can SEE it. And the way they enter is by getting baptized. If they choose only to listen to these things and maybe change some stuff in their lives they will only be able to SEE Gods kingdom. Pretty cool. Well time is flying so I must move on. I could go on and on cause it was an amazing conference. But short on time.


On Friday I went to a town called Pampas to see how they are doing there. It was awesome. Super pretty. Take a look at all the pictures. Came back Saturday.

But ya Sunday was amazing. As you can see we had a baptism. Earlier this week we were praying about our investigators and who would be ready to be baptized. We went and visited a bunch of people but nothing. So I thought we should go visit an investigator I had been teaching with Elder Novoa. She has always been willing to learn but never went to church. I had gone to visit her every once in a while but nothing ever really happened until 2 weeks ago when she came to church. So Wednesday we decided to visit her and she was ready to get baptized on Sunday. Despite all of the problems in her home she still wanted to do it. We were soooo surprised, she had changed soooo much. We had no idea why until we took out 1 Nephi 3:7 and I started to give the background and she was like "ya I know" and then she took over and started summarizing all of 1 Nephi. I had such a strong feeling at that moment because we knew that the change she had was because of the Book of Mormon. It is amazing that book, seriously. Sunday she was baptized and I had the privilege to do it.

She shared her testimony of the church and especially of the Book of Mormon. It was a great day, great testimony builder. 


Well that is all I have time for. Want to write alot more but I gotta go. Love you guys sooo much and have a great week.
Elder Paolacci


ps - mom can shoot me a quick email with basic instructions to make meatballs. We are going to make spaghetti and meatballs today :)

3.12.12

Well hello there familyyyy!!!
Great week! Started off with our journey to lima. Quite a trip haha.
Elder Biliter is the zl in the other zone in Huancayo so he was on the bus with us. It was a good time. I was still kinda sick but still had a great time. We arrived in Lima around 10pm but when I got to the house alllll of my buddies were there so I didn’t get to sleep until 3am. Haha bad choice because I was pretty much dead for consejo the next day. I was coughing up a storm. But I survived. As always Prez does an amazing job and we learn so much. After consejo we had the choice to play soccer or basketball. I didn’t wanna do either cause I felt like crud but all the gringos convinced me to play basketball and we had a great time. Surprisingly it went pretty well. I think I play basketball better when im sick haha. So ya that turned out fun.
After that you will never guess what we went to eat! Mcflurries from mcdonalds!!!! Oh my goodness it was soooo good. Haha the blessings of being a zone leader. That night we also ordered pizzas! I had to use the little money the mission gives me because I still haven’t been able to take money out of the bank. But that too was amazing!!!! Yet again that night we didn’t sleep until 2 or 3. It is pretty cool being able to talk with all my buddies like that (Rider, Biliter, Johns, Brown, Norris, Sheridan), good times. The next day we were supposed to travel at 8am but we missed our bus and the next one didn’t leave until 2 in the afternoon.
So we were sent to go verify the district meetings in guess where MUSA!! Not sure if you remember or if I ever told you but that’s where we had our district meetings when I was in Manchay! It was super cool being able to walk into that chapel and remember all those moments from when I was starting the mission. I also sat in on Manchays district meeting. It was really cool seeing them talk about some of the same people I have baptized or taught that are now giving references that are getting baptized. It was an awesome experience.
The bad news is that they told me that Blanca, Carlos, and Carla haven't been to church in quite awhile. The good thing is that one of my buddies is in that area now so he promised me he would go and visit them. Idk if you are still trying to do that picture book for them but I think that would help a lot. On the other hand I talked to Elder Quiñonez in the consejo and he said Milagros and Katy are some of the best converts he has ever seen. In this last transfer since I have left they have helped 2 of their friends get baptized and 2 more have a baptismal dates. It is amazing seriously seeing the effects of that one moment on the bus when we met Milagros. Everytime I think about it, it gives me chills. Well after all this we finally got on our way at 2. Now the cool thing about the bus company we take is that they always show movies and we have permission to watch them (of course we have to use our discretion). Most of the time I just sleep because I would rather not watch them but on our way back Wednesday they played a new movie called Moneyball with Brad Pitt about the Oakland a´s. Now I had heard they were making this movie about 3 years ago but I had completely forgotten about it. When I saw that they were gonna put it on I decided I had to watch it. What a great movie, seriously, apart from making me miss baseball like crazy I learned something that applies a lot to missionary work. There is a part in the movie where Billy Beane says that "if things aren’t going the way we want them to or the way they should, it makes no sense that we keep using the same methods or tactics. In change we need to find new ones, and that’s when things will change" Now I don’t know if that’s exactly how he said it but you get the point. It was one of those moments where it just helped me a lot to realize how we can help the mission progress. Or things in our lives in general. And by the way that’s probably my favorite movie of all time now.
Well as you can see we had Magaly´s baptism on Saturday. It was amazing. Super spiritual. She was scared to ask me to baptize her because she didn’t want me to get even sicker. But I told her I was fine and that there is nothing that would stop me from accepting the offer. It was an awesome experience.
Well family it has been a great week. Next week President comes for a conference so we need to organize everything. I have been thinking alot and I think I am gonna talk with president when he comes and ask him if I can train in one of the next changes coming up. Zl has been a great experience and if he wants me to stay ZL all the way to the end that is what I will do, but I would love the experience again before I go home of training a new missionary. So we will see what happens.
Have a great week! Love you all. Congrats to Tina and Jon. Those pics are soooo awesome. I love the pic with grandpa, dad and John. Congrats to Logan on playing such an awesome baseball game. Can't wait to get home and help him out too. Way to go Coleton hanging in there with track. I hated running. So Props to you kid. Karleigh hang in there, it is almost graduation time. It will be worth all the hard work when it is OVER !!!! Can't believe how big the little babies are.
I gotta go - I love you all
Elder Paolacci



well the whole 25th of july date isnt set yet becuase flight arrangements have not been made yet, but if its not the 25th it'll be the 24th or 26th.

Christmas Week

wellll quite a good week i guess you could say Christmas is sneaking up on us! idk why but its been a little harder this year to have it sink in. its been kinda depressing because the people where I live don't go all out on Christmas lights like they did in Manchay. It's crazy how they people with less money are the ones that do more to create the Christmas spirit. I really hope this week the people around here stop being so rushed and stop to feel the Christmas spirit, because Christmas is a time of year that's really special, especially when you are teaching about the life and ministry of our Savior. It just seems like they aren't feeling the Christmas spirit yet. But in all other regards it has been a great Christmas season.
this week we have been working alot with Katy, the sister of Milagros.
she said she wants to get baptized but she feels like there's something stopping her. we are praying soooo much for her. that would be the best Christmas present ever to see her choose to take this step in her life. I feel like her and Milagros are like my sisters. It's crazy how Heavenly Father has put these people that seem to grow closer to me at this time of the year (at this time last year I met hermana Blanca and her family, what a true blessing that was for me). So if you will all just keep Katy in your prayers and I'm sure she will be able to feel the prayers of others on her behalf.
Our zone is working super hard. We had 5 baptisms yesterday and everyone is super excited to keep working hard and spreading the message of the gospel. We have got a great zone (except we are now really missing Elder Biliter).
Elder Quiñonez is seriously awesome tho. He's the only member in his family and was baptized 2 years before he came. He's got an amazing testimony and teaches super well, we are having a great time teaching together.
Well I hope you guys have an amazing Christmas week, it's my last in the mission. I'm gonna have the best time that I can sharing the gospel, keep me and the people here in your prayers. love you all! Talk to you soon !!!
Elder Paolacci

Amazzzzzzing Week

woooohoooo!!!!
new baby in the family! I'm so excited! Delainie is such a cute baby, I cant wait to meet her! well I just got back from the office and Sister Baldwin just dropped off the package so I now have it. I can't wait to eat the cookies. I'm gonna use these new shoes as my shoes for important stuff when I have to look good and I'll try to treat them well so I can use them when I get home. ahhh so excited!


well this week was ammmmaaaazzzzzing
Lets see Monday we watched Toy Story 3 with the zone and played basketball. We needed a down day and it was fun and relieved alot of stress. 


Wednesday was probably the coolest day of my mission. We found out on Tuesday night that the ward wanted us to go to the temple with them to help with baptisms. So we instantly called president and he gave us permission.
That night we called our converts and 3 said they might be able to go, Stephany, Yuri (its pronounced Judy, she got baptized like 2 days before i got here), and Milagros! But none of them were sure. In the morning we called Yuri and she could to go, stephany got permission from her mom so she was super excited but Milagros still didn't know if she would be able to make it work. After we called, Elder Biliter and I kneeled and prayed that she could receive the help to be able to go. We called her again awhile later and she said she had just prayed and felt that she had to go no matter what. it was amazing to know that we were praying at the same time as her and that God truly answers our prayers when we need it most.
Well to say the least, the experience in the temple was amazing, its hard to even explain in words how I felt. We got to be witnesses for the baptisms and I cried seeing Milagros get in the water. I swear, she is the most spiritually powerful person I have ever met. Let me just be the first one to say that she's gonna marry an apostle one day. I'm so glad she got in contact with you mom and you are talking to her, she loves you.
When she got baptized I told her that Logan had the same bday as her but apparently it was alot cooler coming from you . She came running up at church with the hugest smile asking me if I knew they had the same bday, haha I just acted surprised. She's so awesome and keep talking to her! (The bad thing is now that she knows my name)


Saturday we had two baptisms! It was a mother and daughter that got baptized like 3 years ago but they never got confirmed and fell away and so we were so happy to help them back and have them get baptised and confirmed. it was an amazing baptism and I got to baptize the mom and Biliter baptized the daughter, such an awesome experience.

Hey, so did you guys see the First Presidency Christmas Devotional last night?! amazing huh, I'm downloading the videos right now! those are gonna help us sooo much, what an awesome resource.
So when President Monson was talking I had the strongest impression and truly feel like we should start and end with a prayer when we open presents on Christmas, something small, but it'll help alot to keep the spirit of gratitude and the focus as to why we really give gifts.
Sounds as though grandma is loving DC and doing really well. Tell everyone I love them and send all my best.
I hope that you have a great start to the Christmas season! Loving it here in Peru !
Elder Paolacci

Best Thanksgiving Ever !!!!

woooooo familllyyyyy!

awesome awesome awesome weekend! starting off with Thursday, thanksgiving was AMAZING!!!! we went to the temple with the zone.

 we went to the ccm and ate with president and sister cavanaugh. president cavanaugh totally reminds me of john haha it was way funny. they would totally get along. for lunch we had turkey, stuffing, and a bunch of other good stuff that i don't know the name of. after the lunch i got to go see hermano casanova and hermana caballero! they were my teachers my last three weeks in the ccm. they are soooooo awesome. i love them so much. they said my Spanish was way too good haha. ahhh it was such a cool experience. after that the cavanaughs took us to a grocery store! they hooked us up with soooo much food! it was ridiculous!

 but ya ready for the highlight of the day?! so ya we were in the grocery store and biliter suddenly says ¨No! FOOTBALL!, NO! THE PACKERS ARE PLAYING!!!!!!¨. I'm sure you guys could imagine how happy your son was. haha dont worry i didn't stay and watch the game but i totally took pics with my hero Aaron Rodgers. ok i admit i totally watched one play but pres cavanaugh totally said it was ok and he watched it with me.

ahhhhhh best best thanksgiving gift i could have had. I'm always gonna remember that day. No, really I loved the Turkey too !!!! Please tell everyone thank you for the awesome messages.

 i also realized i needed to get alot better with my journal so I've been super good recently.

 so ya Friday was the baptism of a girl named stephany, shes 12 and she has the strongest strongest testimony. her uncle baptized her and she was super happy. the font was super dirty before he service so i had to mop it! so fun! but the baptism turned out amazing! 

on to Saturday...

awesome again. there was a multi stake dance festival. when i say multi stake i mean 8 stakes. it was intense. President Ardila asked us to set up some stands outside. we made a really cool Book of Mormon stand and we got a TON of references! it was a super cool activity too. 

Sunday was AMAZING too !!!

 in sacrament meeting i got to confirm Stephany, it was an awesome experience i will never forget, when i said recieve the holy ghost i just got slammed with the spirit and the words just came flowing out, it was amazing.

after church we had the baptism for a boy named Jesus. biliter baptized him and there were like 40 members there. i got to confirm him right there and then too, and had the same feelings as before.

confirming someone is such an amazing privilage and im so thankful to be able to take part of it and be a tool in the lords hands.

after church we had 4 lunches with members, I almost exploded. 

But ya , awesome weekend! unforgetable, I love the mission! most amazing time of my life.

give my love to everyone. 

love, elder paolacci!

Happy Thanksgiving !!!

welll holllllla!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!! 

number 2 in peru! so glad im with a gringo cause they totally don't celebrate it here. but we definitely started the day off awesome! today just luckily happened to be our pday and we had temple! it was awesome. after the session got some pics with the zone and got some that you can try for the christmas card! i will send them on Monday becuase they are not loading right now. 

i guess ill give you guys the low down on whats been going on the last week and a half last monday for pday we went to a market in our zone , it was pretty cool, super busy but its all good. ummm the highlight of the week was a multizone conference we had with elder waddell of the 70. he is absolutely amazing, super spiritual and taught us soooo much. afterwards we had a meeting with him with all the zone leaders and he taught us some cool stuff and really got us excited and helped to motivate us even more with things we can do to help the mission. 

also in the conference we had the long awaited mtc room reunion, me, rider, capps, and norris. sadly there was no time to take pics so ya sorry about that.

but it was awesome having us all together. 

what an awesome day it was.

this week we are gonna have 2 baptisms - a boy named jesus and a girl named stephany.

they are way awesome and im super excited for them. 

So I guess the plan today is that Biliter and I are eating Thanksgiving dinner with  the ccm president, we arent really sure. but we will get it all figured out.

well i have wasted like half my time trying to get my pics sent for the christmas card but its taking too long. ill get them to you on monday!

i love my mission and i love ya all! have a great day. give all the family my love. 

Elder W. Christopher and Sister Carol S. Waddell 

Family: born June 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, Calif., to Wayne and Joann Waddell. Married Carol Stansel on July 7, 1984, in the Los Angeles California Temple. Four children: Lauren Renee (Russel) Marsh, Rebecca Joann (Gerrit) Winkel, Marc Christopher and Jonathon William.

Education: bachelor's degree in history from San Diego State University; graduate work in BYU executive MBA program.

Career: first vice president of investments at Merrill Lynch, working in international division since 1986 with clients primarily in Mexico.

Community Service: board member of the International Community Foundation based in San Diego, Calif., and working primarily with philanthropy across the border in Mexico.

Church Service: full-time missionary in Spain Barcelona Mission, 1978-80; Area Seventy; president of Spain Barcelona Mission, 2006-2009; stake president and counselor; mission president's counselor; bishop and counselor

Thanksgiving Week

No email today because Dylan's p-day this week will be on Thursday. 

But one of the nice members in Peru posted this picture.

He looks Happy !!!!

November 14, 2011

made this pretty cool sign for 11-11-11 11:11 that ill send home for you guys

hollaaaaaa!
well, super super good week!
to start off, Monday we went shopping haha, got you guys some awesome stuff! so excited to send it off to you guys for Christmas!
well Tuesday was great, we had zl counsel, it was way cool, learned a bunch and ate pizza, what more could i ask for? i am a happy boy. ill send more pics of it next week, i forgot one of the memory cards in the room.
Then Wednesday was quite interesting, in the morning i was eating some candy and felt something super crunchy, haha ended up being my tooth! a part of my tooth broke off haha. so i went to the dentist to get it fixed and he said it was from and old filling and the wall of my tooth was super thin, and he just filled it for free. the funny part was that the office was super sketchy. he used an old microwave to store his tools. but everything turned out fine.
Thursday Biliter had to go to the doctor for something so we went to the hospital across the street from the u.s. embassy on the really really nice side of town. and we ate McDonald's. also elder rider was there with his comp so we talked a bunch. which was awesome.
now for the super cool part of the week. Saturday morning at 6am was the baptism of Hernan. it was amazing! we thought no one was gonna show up cause it was so early. but little did we know that like 20 people were there !!!! Milagros came, and a bunch of the single adults, it was awesome. he really was super prepared to accept the gospel and I'm so grateful for the privilege i had to meet and help him. now for the sad news. Saturday he told us that he's moving to Piura and might not be back for a long time. we talked alot and explained to him that if he prepares he will be able to serve a mission and that's his number 1 goal. we taught him that this is gods plan for him and that he has to help his family do the same things he is doing. he left Sunday, it was super sad but we know has gonna do what he needs to do. really was a testimony builder seeing what heavenly father does to prepare his children and how much he has prepared for each one of us.
last night we had a FHE in the house of Milagros. not exaggerating there were 27 people in her little house. the whole YSA organization went and it was an amazing experience. I'm loving it here in Vitarte and i never wanna leave. I'm so glad that I will probably be here for Christmas cause i feel like I'm part of a family here.
love you guys sooooo much and I'm so happy you guys are doing great.
Friday was the 15 month mark! its going fast! i am doing my best to make every moment count and make sure that i am doing everything the lord has planned for me. the gospel of Jesus Christ is remarkable and serving a mission is by far the best decision I have ever made. i am so grateful for this opportunity. 
Love , Elder Paolacci


Chatting back and forth this morning with him -
Dylan : hey mom i got a question I'm starting to learn Portuguese and i wanted to know if you could send me a little English-Portuguese dictionary and maybe a little book that could help me learn it. I'm reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese right now but i might need some other stuff to make it a little easier.
Me : Portuguese ! Wow - that is awesome ! I am actually sending you out a little Thanksgiving envelope today and so I will go see if I can find one this morning. Are you finding people that speak Portuguese in Peru ? Did they come from Brazil. I am going to go ask Matt Hill if he has any suggestions.
Dylan : haha no i just wanna learn it, i have the goal when i get home to work hard and to save money and go to the world cup in 2014, so i figured this would be a good opportunity to learn it while on my mission.