Homecoming

Elder Dylan Paolacci will complete his missionary service as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Tuesday, July 24, 2012.

His homecoming will be Sunday, July 29, 2012 at 11:00 am

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Paradise Valley Stake Center 3601 East Shea Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85028 Everyone is invited to attend

Monday, April 16, 2012

Pictures

You can click on the photos to make them larger
Last P-Day with Elder Van Wagoner
Elder Paolacci traveled to Lima and spent the day Monday with Elder Edwards and the other missionaries who where preparing to go home. I know many of his friends live in South America so I am sure over the course of his life he will make many trips back there. 
If he is anything like his mom, goodbyes are so hard - and he would rather look at as "until we meet again" 
Lucky for him Elder Edwards lives in Queen Creek, AZ 
and so he will be seeing him in 14 weeks

Time for changes
Elder Paolacci has been called to serve as a trainer of a new missionary
 for the next 12 weeks 
(he will have 3 weeks of his mission remaining when the training period is over)
He has loved his time serving as a Zone Leader,
 but is anxious to train a new missionary to serve in the Peru Lima East Mission.



What an amazing WELCOME Elder Paolacci & Elder Janco received
 when they arrived in Jauja (I am sure this is his pension and her family)
When Elder Paolacci arrived in the mission one of the very first things he did was help Cesar Aedo to put up the Circus Tent. Well he sent a picture of this billboard this week. 
Looks like it is circus time again.

I actually found this biography on Cesar Aedo - what an amazing man he is 
César Aedo is a five-foot-five Peruvian native who dedicated his life to learning the art of mime and entertainment, though not before his commitment to God. Raised in Lima, Peru, César attended Sunday school ate age six because after the classes were over, the teachers showed silent films portraying the comedy of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Harold Lloyd. This provided the first blossoming of César’s interest in the art.
César and his family were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often misnamed the Mormon Church) when César was just nine years old. César was already performing in his LDS branch’s (a small congregation) talent show at age eleven. César’s father was a tailor and did not have a lot of money, but César was determined to have an education and to serve a mission for his church (a two-year commitment to the Lord sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others), both of which dreams he had to fund himself. César did this by washing and polishing cars near his school. His determination and commitment extended to his work while on a mission. After having an appendectomy, he was back to work only five days later, explaining matter-of-factly, “I have work to do. I am a missionary.”
After César returned from his mission, he studied sociology at Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal in Lima, while also continuing to pursue his interest in the arts. He graduated with a B.A. in Sociology, but intended to study political science in Europe. He earned money to put towards this goal by performing as a mime in several South and Central American countries until he earned enough money to cover a flight to Europe. He did not have more money than this, however, and went on faith and talent.
Upon arrival in Europe in 1979, a series of events prevented him (providentially in his opinion) from enrolling right away. In the interim, he visited his sister for several weeks in Geneva, Switzerland. During this visit, he decided he did not want to pursue an education in political science, but instead wanted to study with Marcel Marceau, a man considered by many to be the master of mime.
César’s persistence finally landed him a spot in Monsieur Marceau’s school, Ecole Internationale de Mime, where César studied not only mime, but also dramatic art, classical and modern dance, acrobatics, and fencing. He was once again able to support himself through gaining his education by hard work, though this time it was miming, not washing cars. After studying three years with Marceau, César turned to Marceau’s mentor, Etienne Decroux (recognized around the world as the Father of Modern Mime), in 1983. After that, César also studied clowning with Philippe Gaulier, another famous teacher. In 1987, he travelled to the United States to study at Harvard University and at the Lee Stasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City.
César’s résumé is quite impressive, and he has been both happy and blessed in his career. He has performed throughout Europe, South and Central America, and the United States and has held contracts with many prestigious groups, including Circus Knie and the Big Apple Circus. César found great happiness in his family as well, with his wife, Linda, and their son, Markus.
Though he mostly shares his talents through comedy, César also has a deep testimony of Jesus Christand recognizes God’s hand in his own life. He uses his talent to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he has also used the fruits of his talent to help support his own family members, which he feels very grateful to have been able to do.


This must be one of the many things Elder Paolacci is having crafted in Peru.

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

Monday, April 9, 2012

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


Monday, April 2, 2012

4.2.12


Fam Fam
Great week, haha i feel like i start off all my letters the same way.
But ya Monday for pday we made spaghetti in the pension!!!! Woohoo. We took pics with my comps camera but he didn’t bring it to internet so I will have to send them next week. Tuesday we started a 2 day division with the district leaders in Huancavelica. It was awesome, we had some really cool lessons with the Elder that was with me. I also talked to the assistants and they said I am probably gonna train this next transfer!!!!!! So pumped, not gonna lie, but that’s what I have been praying for. But I also know that it is not my choice and I will do what the Lord calls me to. But I know that it would be amazing to have an opportunity to train before I go home.
So on Thursday I went back to Pampas because President took both the missionaries out on Tuesday and they had a girl that could get baptized Friday. Soooo me and one of the district leaders went to go baptize her. We totally felt like secret missionary agents showing up to a town to baptize someone. But…..when we got there the mom wanted nothing to do with us. We were kinda upset I guess you could say but we kept our calm and talked with her. The lesson ended up being super spiritual and she ended up accepting the baptism of her daughter. So I am not gonna lie, my comp and I seriously felt so awesome afterwards. We taught soooo well together and due to our preparation this girl was baptized. We had the baptism the next day in the house chapel? (in Spanish its casa capilla, sounds so much better) the baptism was in one of the adult size kiddie pools (haha it was kinda funny) but everything turned out sooo cool. I would have pics but….i had no room in my memory card. I have to burn a pic cd today so I can transfer all my pics and have space for consejo.
Well we came back Saturday morning for conference and that pretty much occupied the rest of the weekend. I loved sooo many talks, I didn’t bring my notes with me right now so I cant remember any of the quotes I wrote but I did like a lot the talk from Christofferson, on the doctrine of Christ. Pretty sure all missionaries liked it. Also, loved Holland's and Uchtdorfs. Also Bednars from priesthood sesh. On how we receive the authority of the priesthood first and after we receive the power based on our righteousness. It was an awesome talk. So amazing. BUT the part of conference that impacted me the most was when MOTAB sang "Come Thou Fount", idk why but it hit me hard with the spirit as they sang.
Just to let you guys know, this church is TRUE. Everything about this church is a testimony the truthfullness of it. From the millions of people watching conference, the dedication of the members, all the missionaries there are serving, the Prophet and the Apostles and even the Tabernacle Choir. We have so many blessings in our life from this amazing Gospel. I know it is true. And it saddens me to know that not everyone feels the same way. Even members of the church, that’s why it is sooo important that we work towards receiving a testimony of this Gospel, The Book of Mormon, and Joseph smith. Every time I feel the testifying power of the spirit it is like I fasten another screw that holds my testimony of this church together. We need to try our hardest to keep having spiritual experiences everyday of our lives so we can have an unbreakable testimony. That includes missionary experiences. I promise to all of you that if you don’t have a testimony of this church that it is not too late to receive it. Like we heard sooo many times in conference, our Heavenly Father is waiting for us and due to his sweet mercy we can always change, it is never too late.
Well time is unfortunately running out. Hopefully we have a baptism Saturday, it’s a young boy named Brayan that has more desire to learn about the gospel than anyone I have met. Oh and Selena is doing awesome, she is such a great convert. She took a huge step this Sunday closing her shop so she could go to church. I haven’t seen that from a convert very much in my time here.
Well I hope you all have a great week. Love you all!
Elder Paolacci



so here is the only pic of the week haha. a cool little graffiti monkey thing in our area. sorry that is all I got. I will have a bunch for next week from what I think will be my last consejo :( Bittersweet - I love being a zone leader. But I really am hoping to be able to train before I go home.

Monday, March 26, 2012

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 :)

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

3.19.12


What up family!!!!
Interesting week. Haha the mission never seems to fail as far as craziness goes. Lets see on Monday we actually took things a little chill. Took a nap and wrote some letters to my converts. Good pday, needed the break.

Tuesday we had a great zone meeting. I talked about how the Lord has prepared people for us to teach since the creation of the earth, that there are people waiting especially for us. So we need to open our mouths and talk to everyone, if not we wont know who are the people that our Heavenly Father has put in place for us. It really is pretty simple. I really like a scripture in D&C 29:7 that talks about how we are called to gather Isreal and we will know who are the chosen people when they accept our invitation to hear more. In our mission we are starting to do something really cool. In our contacts we are focusing on our purpose more. We are are actually telling the people as soon as we meet them that we here to baptize people. Haha it is pretty interesting. A lot of times we get horribly rejected but we also are finding the people prepared by the Lord to hear our message at this time. It’s a really cool change we are taking in the mission. We have been having some struggles the last couple months, but as I said last week the work is always progressing and changing, so us as missionaries (the blood of the work) need to change as well. Also asked a couple missionaries to share testimonies about how the Lord has prepared people for them. I shared my testimony and story about Milagros and Katy. It was a really cool meeting.

This week we had a lot of splits with other areas. We are trying to focus on verifying the areas in the zone. This week I went to Huancavelica and did a baptismal interview. But it wasn’t your ordinary baptismal interview. First off, it was in a tiny tiny town like a half hour outside of Huancavelica. We were joined by two cows in the baptismal interview. But I haven’t even gotten to the interesting part yet. So ya the guy was deaf. 100 percent. It was quite interesting. I had to write everything. Eventhough sometimes he couldn’t understand my handwriting and got frustrated, it was a very spiritual experience. He has had a lot of trials in his life and has a very strong testimony. As I left his house I felt the most amazing feeling, standing at the top of a mountain, in the middle of nowhere, just getting done doing a baptismal interview to someone who cannot hear sounds but can hear the spirit as strong as anyone. Awesome experience!!! Eventhough the 4 hour taxi ride back to Huncayo was terrible haha.

This week we have conference with President. I am really excited. It is always an amazing learning experience. We are prepared and ready for it. I am pretty sure it is my second to last in the mission. Also super excited for general conference! Last one in peru . Trying to get spiritually prepared. You guys should do the same! General Conference is such an amazing opportunity to be taught and spiritually fed. If we do so the spirit will testify to us the things we need to hear and we will be given impressions that we should write down and act upon.


Oh ya,since Jade is 9 you guys should totally have her listen to the missionaries if she is going to be coming to church all the time! That would help her out a ton, along with our family.

I have also been thinking a lot about what dad said when we skyped and how he wants me to teach you guys the first lesson when I get home. So you can truly feel the spirit of what I have done these past 2 years. I think it would be awesome, maybe hard in English, but it will be an awesome opportunity. Even though leaving here will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do at this point in my life, the thing that helps me is knowing I am coming home to my family, I am excited to be back with our family.


Well have a good week! Today we are going to play a game of soccer between the zones! Gonna be sickkkkk! 

Love, Elder Paolacci

Monday, March 12, 2012

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.




Farewell

Dylan's Farewell will be Sunday August 8, 2010 at 11:00 am at

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Paradise Valley Stake Center
3601 East Shea Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85028
Everyone is invited to attend