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.  

November 7, 2011

sooooo familllly!
awesome awesome week! really had alot of cool experiences.

monday we played basketball and volleyball as a zone, it was super fun, hadn't played for a longgggg long time. tuesday night we had a family home evening with the family of milagros and her dad came! she had been having alot of troubles with him, he wasn't wanting her to go to church but she's been strong and going anyways. it was a super cool experience. also this saturday we had an appointment with a guy named Herman. we have been teaching him for like three weeks and he's been way awesome. we have been kicking ourselves for never inviting him to baptism, its just we were kinda scared of scaring him off, which is completely the opposite of what we should be thinking. but saturday we sat down with him and read 2 Nephi 32 together, and it was amazing. he received so much personal revelation and he was so excited. but the best part was how strong the spirit was, it was stronger than i have ever felt. it was amazing being there witnessing his conversion right in front of my eyes. it was super cool. i could say it was the coolest lesson of my mission. the next day was sunday and he came super excited and his baptism is gonna be saturday! at 6 am!
other news is that i got a huge hookup on some new glasses. the ones i had have been hurting my head so this guy in my ward got me some super nice ones for like 30 bucks. haha they are like coletons, but i totally didn't copy him. they are just like pday glasses. i need new contacts asap
today we are going to a place called grau. its in the center of lima so that's gonna be fun maybe buy some Christmas gifts.
the zone is getting alot better, we have alot more missionaries that are willing to work hard and are having alot of success, there are 8 baptisms planned for this weekend so we are way excited.

i love my mission. truly the greatest experience of my life. the gospel is true and it brings so much happiness to peoples lives. i marvel everyday at the miracles i see as people live the gospel.

thanks for being such an awesome family. thank you for all your love and support. please continue to pray for me and the people here in peru. time is going so fast. i am still having a hard time believing coy is coming home next week. i don't want to think i only have 9 months left. haha this is crazy. i am loving every minute of my mission and i love the people of peru. i love you all

elder paolacci

here's my letter to president

Buenos dias presidente!
ha sido una gran semana presidente. primeramente quisiera pedir diculpa por no haberle enviado mi carta la semana anterior, tuve algunas problemas en cuanto de mi maquina. pero aqui esta mi carta para este semana. este semana ha sido muy buena. quisiera contarle que tuvimos una leccion con un investigador que recibio mas revalacion personal en una leccion que he visto en toda mi mision. leimos 2 nefi 31 y el su puso tan dispuesto de bautizarse. fue maravilloso. relment vi el poder de la conversion que da el libro de mormon. fue la leccon mas poderosa de mi mision y mi testimonio aumentó bastante. gracias por todo presidente, y cuidese mucho
Elder Paolacci

October 31, 2011

So this email came through sometime today . . . he must have been on a bad computer with major delays yesterday

little update

my computer is kinda lame

I'm with elder Biliter for another change! (so happy about that)

I felt my first earthquake ever! guess where I just happened to be.....haha the bathroom! haha it was so funny, scary, and awesome at the same time.

We had a crazy amazing service project this week. a lady is building her house at the top of a mountain so we carried her wooden walls up there. that slope thats in the pics is what we had to walk up with that wall.

Then we saw the ugliest saddest dog ever

Highlights of my week - we had about 10 investigators in church on Sunday and guess what ???? Elder Capps is in my zone again! I love him, he's a district leader - it's awesome - I am happy !!!

Happy Halloween

JUST PICS

Well Dylan was short on computer time this week so we just emailed back and forth a bit and then he had to go. Between our emails and Elder Biliter's (Dylan's companion) moms email I got a good recap of the week.

But we did get pictures. Always a plus.

First thing is Dylan is LOVING his companion. He continually tells us they are like twins. They have all the same likes and interests. I can also tell that they both are dedicated to working really hard. They know how to work hard and they know how to play hard.

They had a stake missionary movie night on Monday they were hoping and praying to have several investigators and new members there. 

Changes are this week and we are hoping that Dylan and Elder Biliter get to stay together at least one more change. They are working hard and there is great success ahead. They are working with a few investigators that are future missionaries and holders of the priesthood. They had 7 people at Sacrament meeting and 4 were guys who could receive the Melchizedek priesthood, which they are very excited about. We hope they get to stay in the area  and see their progression. One of the new members they have been able to help, Amador, received a calling in Young Men which they are SO excited about.

They have been visiting Milagros and her mom and sister a lot and last night they came to a FHE and it was awesome. They were able to help a family this week giving service by painting a house. They absolutely love it when they get to do service, and everyone gets a kick out of seeing them in their street clothes just out there working hard. 

They love the opportunity to do anything to serve the people of Peru.

 It is amazing to watch your son grow to truly love those he serves. He has grown so attached to them and I know he loves them with all his heart.

We will be excited to see what next weeks brings.