Starting Your "Remembrance" Journal

I love General Conference! This year I had a goal to listen to all 4 sessions all the way through, but quickly realized this goal was unrealistic with three children at home. Their attention span only lasted through about the first two speakers. So once again I will have to wait for the conference Ensign to come in my mail so I can read the talks that I missed.

There was one talk that really touched me though, and I wanted to pass along the same challenge that was extended in this particular talk. I want to see if it will make a difference in your life! The talk was by President Eyring, (love him!) and in it he told a story of an experience he had one evening when he was observing, from a distance, his father-in-law performing an act of service for his (Pres Eyring’s) family. As he watched his father-in-law rush past him, he heard a voice (which was not his voice) speak to him, saying, “I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.” As he was writing down this experience, he knew that he was to start a journal where he recorded acts such as this every day. Each night before writing in this journal, he would ponder, “Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?” and that is what he wrote about. He would write down a few lines a day, and he did this for many years until his children were older, at which time he made copies of this journal for his children.

His point was this: it is easy for us to not recognize God’s hand in our life or to easily forget. I think starting a “remembrance” journal is the best idea ever! So let’s all do this! Today my journal entry is going to say, “Today Caleb was chasing his friend in a parking lot and a young girl who was totally speeding and not looking BARELY missed running over Caleb. The fact that Caleb hasn’t been hit by a car yet is definitely a miracle!”

When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be remember. Because all of you have made covenants–you know what to do and you know how to do it—our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day—to take the sacrament and listen to the priests pray “that they may always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given them.” Nobody should ever forget to go to sacrament meeting. Remember is the word. Remember is the program (Elder Spencer W. Kimball, Charge to Religious Educators, pp. 9-12).

Forgetting is most likely to occur when things are going well. Mormon, after abridging eleven apostasy-filled chapters of Helaman, said this:

Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do trample under their feet the Holy One—yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity (Hel. 12:2, emphasis added). From a talk by Ted L. Gibbons. Here is a link to the full talk: http://www.ldsliving.com/ot17.asp