1991
FYI: For Your Info
September 1991


“FYI: For Your Info,” New Era, Sept. 1991, 40–43

FYI:
For Your Info

When you catch the greater vision of keeping a journal, you’ll find it can become one of your best friends. Here are some hints to inspire you.

Writing What’s Wrong … and Right

by Jeanette Goates Smith

Joys of a Journal

As you write in your journal, you’ll discover benefits such as these:

  • Your journal can help you make difficult decisions.

  • Your journal can be a positive way to get rid of anger.

  • Your journal can help you think clearly when you’re confused.

  • Your journal can help you understand yourself better.

  • Your journal can make you a better person, since knowing that you’re going to record your actions can encourage you to do worthwhile things.

Spicing It Up

To make your journal more interesting, you might try a few of the following suggestions:

  • If you like to draw, include a few sketches or cartoons to illustrate your entry. Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words.

  • If you’re not artistic, clip a comic from the newspaper that illustrates your feelings.

  • Tape or paste in relevant photographs or ticket stubs or programs that are souvenirs from the event you’re describing.

  • Add pages from your day planner, if you keep one, to give an idea of the daily things you do. Or write your journal directly in your day planner.

  • Remember to date every entry and include the location and full names of the people you’re writing about.

  • Try using subtitles. They’ll help you locate a particular subject or event at a later date.

  • Include poems or quotations that catch your attention. Write them in an interesting way so they stand out.

  • Use color. Pens, stickers and photos work nicely.

The Miracles of Modern Technology

What? You mean you don’t like to write? You don’t get off that easy. Modern technology offers you a choice when it comes to journal keeping:

  1. Write on the computer and keep your entries on a hard drive, a floppy disk, or make a hard copy and destroy the electronic evidence.

  2. Record your feelings on a cassette tape. Don’t forget to index each tape.

  3. Make a video journal. Film yourself talking about recent events, and interview the people involved.

  4. Use something unique to record your experiences. You don’t have to use a serious, hardback book with Journal written across it. There are all sorts of fun binders and notebooks available.

Start Up

Having a hard time figuring out where to begin? Try filling in the blanks of the following sentences for starters.

  • Whenever I have free time I like to ____________.

  • I was so happy/sad when ____________.

  • I like/don’t like because ____________.

  • When I go to church I feel ____________.

  • I laughed/cried so hard when ____________.

  • I want people to know me as the one who ____________.

  • (person you admire) is so ____________; I wish I could ____________ like he/she does.

  • When I meet the Savior, I want him to say to me ____________.

  • If I could change on thing about my life, it would be ____________.

P.S. Don’t feel like you have to write every day, but catch yourself if you let more than a week pass without writing in your journal.

Silent Service

It was a service project like no other for the youth of the Tucson 17th Ward. Missionaries to the deaf had recently arrived in their area and decided to put on a conference for the hearing-impaired in southern Arizona. It was up to the youth to take care of the children while their parents were in workshops.

“If we had not had the youth, we never could have done the deaf conference,” said full-time missionary Sister Lynnette Johnson.

The youth did much more than just baby-sit. They had children’s workshops of their own, which included pantomimed scenes from the Bible with labels and no words; and making spider cookies, puppets, and clay dough figures, among other things. The children were so thrilled they wanted to come back the next week.

“It was exciting to see the kids talking with their hands and being able to understand it,” said Susanne Walston, 17. “It was neat to see the children do things we didn’t know how to do, and they taught us some words in sign language.

Called to Serve

Second Quorum of the Seventy

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Stephen D. Nadauld

Stephen D. Nadauld, 49, of Ogden, Utah, is a former president of Weber State College and has served as director of several organizations. He and his wife, Margaret Dyreng Nadauld, have seven sons.

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Han In Sang

Han In Sang, 51, of Seoul, Korea, has been a regional manager for temporal affairs for the Church. He and his wife, Lee Kyn In, have five children.

Chinese Mission of Love

by Liisa Berg

Tucked away in a small cove in the ultra-modern Crown Colony of Hong Kong sits a tiny village that seems to be a throwback from old China. The community, called Rennie’s Mill, came into existence 40 years ago when refugees from mainland China fled there to avoid the Cultural Revolution. LDS missionaries soon arrived to teach, and the first chapel in Southeast Asia was built there. But over the years, members left, and the branch has dwindled to just a few.

The Young Women of the Hong Kong, Victoria Ward, were recently asked to return to visit with the residents and participate in a sacrament service in the chapel that sits on a hillside at the top of a path that climbs nearly 200 steps.

It took over two hours to get there, via subway, bus, and ferry, but the girls agreed it was well worth the travel. They sang, gave talks, and played the flute for the members, then chatted with the mothers and children of the village and gave them “testimony dolls” that had been made by friends in Utah.

On the way home, they were reminded of the scripture “Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I … bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?” (2 Ne. 29:7).

Double Eagle

A double eagle would be a golfer’s fantasy, but it was the Koford family’s dream come true, as brothers, Adam and Timothy, received Scouting’s Eagle Award on the same night.

Adam, 17, for his Eagle project supervised the construction of 30 picnic tables to be used in the local park system. Timothy, 16, who plays the tuba in his high school’s marching band, supervised Scouts as they dug trenches and laid sprinkler pipe for a cemetery.

Both are members of the Victoria Ward, Riverside California Stake.

Breaking Down Borders

As walls in Europe break down, two LDS girls are doing their best to extend international understanding. Samantha Broadribb of the Norwich Ward, Norwich England Stake, and Geertje Bauerfeind, of the Leipzig Second Ward, Leipzig Germany Stake, have started their own exchange program.

Samantha, a 16-year-old studying German, decided to contact a fellow seminary student in what was then the German Democratic republic. Geertje invited Samantha to stay with her for several weeks to get a taste of life in East Germany. Then Geertje visited Samantha and her family in England for ten days. Geertje loved London’s lights at night.

Awesome Attendance

Neither rain nor snow nor school days off could keep the Gilmore brothers from attending early-morning seminary. They were the first ones in the Pittsburgh Third Ward, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Stake, to have a year of perfect attendance.

They went to early-morning seminary even when their high school had the day off. (Their seminary classmates went to a different high school.) When Matthew and Robert easily could have used weather as an excuse, they made it to class anyway.

Matthew is 17, is in the National Honor Society, and has held many leadership positions in his priesthood quorums. Rob is 16, has also held a number of leadership positions, and is interested in musical theater.

The Great Computer Giveaway

Armstrong Central Junior High School is one Apple computer richer thanks to Jared Tolman, of the Freeport Ward, Pittsburgh East Stake. The seventh grader won the computer for his school by placing first in the Best Overall category at the annual computer competition held at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

This was no small feat, since the contest included 6th–12th graders. Jared’s entry, entitled “Calcu-Draw,” allows the user to draw shapes and select colors by giving a few simple directions.

Working with computers is not the only focus in Jared’s life. He also likes serving as a deacon, playing soccer and Nintendo, Scouting, and collecting rocks.

History’s No Mystery

For Ana Maria Pruneda of the Othello Second Ward, Othello Washington Stake, history is a ticket to Washington, D.C. She was a member of a four-student team that was selected to compete in the nation’s capitol for the History Day competition.

Ana Maria was also chosen as her school’s Citizen of the Year, thanks to her high grade point average and her participation on the basketball team, the school band, and other activities, including serving as the pianist for Young Women in her ward.

Still life photography by Phil Shurtleff

Tucson youth put on special workshops for the children while their parents attended a missionary-sponsored conference for the hearing-impaired.

Young women in Hong Kong visited a small Chinese village and took a gospel message with them.

Pennsylvania’s Jared Tolman is good both on the computer keyboard and on the soccer field.