Journals

Families are strengthened when individual members keep journals. Some people write in their journals daily, but others simply keep notes and then write in their journals weekly or monthly. I’ve found that I remember events better if I write daily. A friend of mine received temporal blessings for writing in her journal daily. Candy’s son David was involved in an automobile accident, and Candy wrote about it in her journal. Later when David was called into court, Candy’s journal entry was admitted as evidence that helped David in his claim.

In visiting with my siblings about events that happened in our childhoods, I learned that each of us remembers specific events very differently. This could happen because we were each involved differently in our own individual way during the event. It could also happen because memories have a way of changing if there is no written word to use as a reference point. Because traditions and memories of our experiences form a part of our history, we should be certain that we are remembering them accurately.

It is important to have traditions as well as to remember our history correctly. This is one reason why progressives want to change the history and traditions of our nation. In May 2008, Michelle Obama said, "Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place as a nation."

What did she mean when she said that we would have to change our conversations, our traditions, and our history? We change the conversation when we put a different slant on the words. We change traditions when we stop repeating the stories of our national heritage, when we take prayer out of the schools, when we stop pledging allegiance to the flag and start pledging allegiance to the earth. Another way to change history is to say that white things are now black and black is now white. For example, President Obama has said that we are no longer a Christian nation. How can he say that when 92 percent of Americans believe in God? How can he say that when 83 percent of Americans believe that public schools should celebrate religious holidays? How can he say that when 66 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday honoring the birth of Jesus Christ?

In order for us to remember traditions and history correctly, we need to write down our experiences and the events that are happening around us. We need to write history as we see it happening in order to have a foundation to judge what other people say and write. Keeping journals is a good way to strengthen our families and nations.