Journal--Gathering Memories

So, my brother, Clayton, gave a Family Home Evening lesson at one of our Sunday dinners on family history and the importance of keeping a journal.  He quoted a talk by Henry B. Eyring from a few years back (I'll have to search for the title of it).  He talked about our grandma's journal that she gifted to each of her children shortly before her death.  My father has also been generous enough to reprint this book to give to each of his children.

My grandma's journal is a priceless gem.  I seriously count it among my treasures.  She shares her mother and father's conversion stories as well as her own spiritual experiences and everyday life experiences.  I can't describe it, but every time I read this book, I feel her love and feel so close to her.  This is despite the fact that she died when I was only three years old.  The only memory I have of her is from one of our Sunday dinners at their house.  She sat me on the kitchen counter next to her and I just knew that she adored me.  That's it.  That's all I remember.  But as I read her journal, I know that she still loves me, cares about me, and watches out for me.

I have tried hard to document my life.  I kept a journal religiously for about 2 years during high school (I wrote in it every night).  But during my senior year, things got so busy and crazy with my AP classes, preparing for college and being in Concert Choir and Madrigals that I let my journal writing fall by the wayside.  I can't tell you how much I regret that.  Because my senior year was the most eventful of my high school experience!

But there are still places where I can go back and gather memories and journal snippets.  Yearbooks, letters to my missionary friends (I kept copies of some of them), old emails, Facebook posts, old birthday cards that I have saved, etc.  All of those things contain valuable information that I can go through and preserve.  Those things have valuable information that I would like to share with my children and my children's children.

And my goal is to do so!  I want to document the sweet, cute, and even maddening things that my children did.  As well as share my spiritual experiences.

I'm grateful to have this blog to document my children's lives.  But it is important for me to remember that it is a record of my life as well.

So, let the gleaning and gathering begin!