Favorite Journal Entries

I love reading my old journals, and encourage my kids to keep their own. It's fun to see the state of mind I was in. I seemed to be writing more to an outsider than to myself, since I often noted things like "...Jeremy, he's my brother. Sometime's we call him Jer."

I started it on July 4, 1986, when I was 8yrs old, right when we got back to America from living in Yemen for two years. On the trip back, we went through Cypress, Germany, France and England, and the thing I wrote most about was the food: "When we were at the Hotel we got settled we dicided to go to Carnaby Street and a restaurant. So we did. But we went to the restaurant first. It was a fish and chips restuarant. (But of corse I didn't have any fish and chips.) (I don't like fish.) I had a hamburger....We toured London more. We saw alot of old buildings and things like that."

(9yrs old) Jan 10, 1988 "...Also today the ugly boys came to Merri Miss A (yuck)." [The "ugly boys" would've been Tyler Bushnell and Ryan Zollinger]

Jan 19, 1988 "...today after eating the butterscotch pudding with marshmallows and butterscotch bark shavings I got very sick and I had a stomach ache and I threw up three times."

Jan 23, 1988 "Well I just heard Steven talking and I think he was either talking to Michael (who I think is gone) or to himself. I think he was talking to himself but just pretending to talk to Michael because I just checked...I don't want to go around Erin now because she's all mad because she has to practice piano but she doesn't want to."

June 16, 1988 "Well yesterday Amber came over because her parents are on the temple trip...In the morning, we went to Westgate Deli. I bought a pack of rockin rasberry bubble yum, two suckers (one of the suckers was for Steven) and the other thing was a 49cent drink of Sprite. Amber bought 3 little jolly ranchers, 4 JoJo potatoes, a spring roll, and a 49cent drink of Sprite. We had fun"
[next day] June 17, 1988 "Today Amber and I went to Westgate Deli again. Amber got one spring roll, one corndog, about 6 JoJo potatoes, and three jolly ranchers. All I got was about 6 JoJo potatoes. We had fun."
[Amber loves it when I exagerrate these entries. It usually goes something like: "Amber got 3 spring rolls, a corndog, 6 jojo potatoes, 2 large pizzas, and a 49cent drink of Sprite. All I got was a jolly rancher and I had to split it with Steven."]

July 20, 1988 [on a trip back from Canada with my grandma and grandpa] "We stopped for dinner at a fansy restaurant and me and Steven colored the back of the kids menu and won a free sundae!" [must've been really "fansy"]

(12 yrs old) Dec 9, 1989 "Something good about being in 6th grade is I can boss around the little 5th graders. They're so DUMB! Except for a few..."

June 6, 1990 "Robyn moved here from Eugene and right near my house! She is really nice and friendly. I hope I can get to know her even better than I already do. She seems really, really, really, really......really, really, really really nice!!!"

[Warning: Drama ahead!]
August 19, 1990 "While I was working on Personal Progress things, one of my goals was to read D&C 8: 7-9 and to follow through the prosess of finding out right choices...If it was right, you would feel the burning in your bosom...I did this and it turned out my question was right because I felt the burning feeling. The question was: 'Is it okay to go with people if you think of it only as a good friendship and you don't ingnore everyone else?' I'm glad I was right because it would've been hard going through 7th grade without it!!" [I don't think my personal revelation skills were very well honed at that point...I like how I tried to justify it though. I blame it all on Jared Hale.]

September 16, 1990 "Today I'm not as excited to go to the dance. I feel so guilty. Everything that happens reminds me of how it would be wrong...and if I don't go to the dance, so many pepole will be hurt...and will hate me forever! I just don't know what to do!...I know! I'll pray and do what I did with the bosom feeling! .................[I acutally wrote out all these dots]............................................... I know now that I should go."

(14 yrs old) Jan 19, 1992 "...If anyone happens to be snooping around in here, I'll remind you of Amendment #4 - I have freedom from search and seizure - so stop reading!"