Dear Diary

Ok maybe this will seem kind of corny. I have been reading a book by Dan Shaunessy from ESPN. It is called "Senior Year". In the book he follows his son's senior year in high school while being recruited for college baseball. (First off I can read, but they have got to be sports books) In the book he cites several times parts o his journal when he was growing up. This got me to thinking about my own journals. I think I like blogs so much because of my experience with my journals.

When I was just about 16 I had a Priest Quorum advisor that taught me a lesson about journals that has been with me for the rest of my life. Lamar Ewell brought in his volumes of journals and read things to us about his life. He taught us how important his journals were and what they had meant to his family. I decide then and there that I was going to try it.

Lamar told us we did not need a fancy book to keep a journal. In fact most of my books are written in spiral note books. The only one that is not is the volume that I started with on my mission. I thought because I was going on a mission I needed a fancy hard bound book. Let me tell you when that was full I went right back to the spiral notebook. Note books are tons easier. Besides I can always bind them later.

I started at 16 years old, so you can imagine that the early text talks lots about girls and my friends. Some of my entries are weird, but they are in my words. I have tickets from ball games I attended and other "junk". When I go back and read it is funny to relive those experiences and think what I should have done different. In college it was harder, I did not want my roommates to think I was weird, they know the truth now, but it outlines lots of my friends and I can see myself growing into a young man/old man.

I did not miss one day on my mission. I figured I could not take everything home so if I wrote about it, I would be able to look at it later in life. Since then my entries skip large amounts of time, but I always try to keep it up to date. I think the last volume I had number over 1200 pages. Lately, I have been typing it in a document on the computer. Anyways, it is fun to go back and read what happened years ago. I let Jill read some of the mission stuff. Not sure if that was a good idea, but that was fun to go through with her. I often wonder what will happen to all of my mere ramblings or what other people are saying about me in their journals. Someday in the book of time we will all be able to find out. Sorry for this stupid post but I think journals are fun

Chances are if I know your name there is something about you in my journal. I thought about making an index one time, but decide that was WAY TOO MUCH WORK.