This past Thursday I had my usual Book of Mormon Institute class. Brother Abbott told us a story of this couple who won a helicopter ride. They left their large number of children at home (I think it was 8 or something like that) and went for an amazing ride. The heartbreaking part is that the helicopter went down during the flight and it killed them both. Their youngest child was just 10 months old. Brother Abbott had one of the middle children in as an institute student a few years back and she told him how she was still getting to know her mother even though she was gone. Her mother had been a faithful journal keeper and this girl was able to read from the journals she kept and still have her mother and father right there with her.
This story really made me think. It made me think about how I wished my own mother had kept journals when she was younger because I would be able to read them and actually get to know the woman my mother used to be before disease ravaged her mind.
Talking to dj about it on the way home made me want to start being better at doing my own journal writing because I know someday I won't be there for my children and I would want them to know who I was. Know some of the things we did when we were still young marrieds who didn't have kids.
I'm trying to decide the best way to do this to. I was thinking, well I have this blog, that's a journal right? But then I thought that maybe some of the blog entries would work but there would be things that I'd want to write that I don't want everyone on the planet being able to access.
So this is what I've come up with. I'm thinking, since my handwriting lacks certain qualities, I'm going to try typing things up and just saving them in word documents. And then when there are enough I'll print them out and put them in a book, along with photos, kind of like scrap booking, but simpler. So then we'll have a binder of journal entries that talk about trips we've taken, hard ships we're going through and will have our testimonies in there. I know I won't be perfect at it but I hope that I can at least succeed in one thing every week or 2 that sums up what's been going on in life.
Because someday, if something happens to me, I want my children to be able to say that they know me even though I may not be there with them.
That is such a great idea! I have been trying to be better about writing in my journal as well. What I do is write personal stuff in my journal and then the fun stuff on my blog so I can put pictures in it. Did you know that you can print out your blog into a blog book?
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