A New Year for Page Choro

Hello Everybody!! Hahaha Good job with the Japanese mom!! You will have no problem getting around when we come back here to visit one day! ;o) Yes I know Elder Bellows. He is a in the Sapporo Mission and I met him while I was serving up there. Really good guy and really funny. I heard from Dad all about his and Matt and Mckenna's little adventure out there this past week. Sounds like it was pretty fun filled, whether it was meeting Alcides or people peacing to Vegas or Hair catching on fire. Matt better be careful, all that fun might hurt him!! ;o) I am glad you got to talk to Marissa before she left. She is going to have so much fun there! I will be honest though, something about her going to Ecuador just makes her feel even farther! So excited for Zach Ward and also for Tommy!!! That is super duper exciting and I cant wait to hear! Come on Zach, Japan Sendai is definitely the place for you!!! I got some gloves Mom so you dont have to worry about it. They arent perfect but they work. Worse than the cold here is just the raining/snowing every single day, it makes it impossible to stay dry, and thus impossible to stay warm. I finished another memory card that is full of Christmas stuff and a whole bunch of funny videos. I will send it off in the next couple of weeks, but first I am going to finish a tape for you guys and send that too. :o) Things with me are going good though. The truth is that I got really sick and had a kind of miserable New Year. I am on the tail end of it now, but I was sick for about 4 days. Just the normal, crazy coughing and blowing of the nose every minute kind of thing. Everybody said I looked so pitiful. I feel much better today though. Despite being sick, the new year was very busy. We did our cleaning for that entire day, the next day, President had us read the book of 3 Nephi and make new years goals which turned out to be a great experience for me. Then yesterday we got to go to a Japanese Shrine and participate a little in all of the New Years Celebration. It was really fun and I got a lot of fun pictures. I am kind of a weird out of body mindset almost. I can hardly believe that I have been gone a year, but at the same time, I feel like I have been a missionary my whole life! I have learned so so much on my mission so far and one of the things I thought about a lot during the New Year was how I can better become like my Savior. With that in mind, there was nothing better I could have done than read 3 Nephi which has the words right out of Christ's mouth on the pages. There were two things that really popped out of the page into my heart, one of which was 3 Nephi 12:42. Go grab your scriptures and read it. And when you have a moment, dont just read it, ponder about what Jesus is saying to us. I cant even tell you what it means because I believe that Christ is speaking to all of us in a very individual way. We all know in our hearts how we can listen to and hearken to the words of Christ in this scripture in our own individual lives. Something that I know and that I can testify to is that when we live by this verse, when we live by the example of Jesus Christ, we WILL have the fullness of joy. We can have heaven on earth, Zion in our homes and families. The way this verse is written in Japanese uses the wording of $B$7$J$5$$!# (B Which reads "shinasai" which means "DO IT!" Christ did not offer this up to us as a suggestion to try out in our lives, living according to this principle is a commandment. I would challenge you to take a little bit of time to read, ponder, and pray about this scripture and how you can better follow this commandment in your life. Mom, you are such an amazing example of following this teaching, thank you for your amazing example to me and to all you associate with. I had a wonderful New Year and I hope yours was and is amazing as well. I love you Mamma!! I love you all and I hope you have a great week! I will talk to you guys next week!! Remember that "He does not believe that does not live according to his belief." Love always, Elder Zachary Taylor Page