My first week in here has been incredibly difficult, and I hope that it will start to get much better. We've been teaching an investigator for the last 4-5 days already (all in spanish). My grasp of the language really isn't very good, and I seem to be stalling a little bit with my learning. For the most part I've been having a pretty good time here at the MTC, but I really feel as if something is missing and I can't quite get over it. I'm trying my best at everything that we do in here. I think that I am one of the advanced missionaries here in regards to knowledge of the gospel and how to apply it to daily life.
I think the hardest thing about life here is that my companion is very contentious. He seems like an angsty version of me from 2 years ago, but he's 24! I feel really bad about our strained relationship, but he tries to find something wrong with everything we do, and the majority of that is focused at me. Other than that, life has actually transitioned pretty smoothly. I am still my regular happy-go-lucky self ;) My district is awesome, and we are all pretty tightly knit already. There are 5 of us in my district that are going to McAllen, so that was pretty surprising, and really cool. This morning was the first real break that we've been able to take all week. Our P-day is each Thursday (not counting last week, which is why you haven't received any letters yet). I am looking forward to the feeling of relaxation that comes with P-day each week. We went to the temple this morning and had a really good endowment session. The spirit was really strong, and for once I didn't feel like punching my companion. This week we had the amazing opportunity to have L. Tom Perry speak to us. They have been training all of the new mission presidents, so there were 10 of the apostles that sat on the stand for the devotional! I have seen many other missinoaries here that may or may not be of interest. Alex Christofferson, Trey Dougher, Ty Fox (who left on Monday),Isaac Fox, Ethan Harris, Sam Piccolo, Eric Emery, and Brandon Fanaika (who is in my zone, and is super awesome btw). Thank you for the letters and packages over the last week, I appreciate all of them and I'm very thankful for all of you. Please remind anyone who might interested in contacting me that dearelder.com is free! Also, I love getting food in the mail, but I would like to ask for not as much from now on. (if you haven't noticed, eating a lot of food right now isn't going to help me too much) :P Again, thank you so much for the love and support. I'm looking forward to our family fast this Sunday, and I hope that we can all receive many blessings for it. I love you all so much, and I already want to be out in the field. Love, Elder Chris PorcelliP.S. Emily, sadly the answer is no, I'd love to let you use it, but It's something that I cherish very much. Don't worry, you'll be ok