Keeping a Meeting Journal

Sometimes it’s difficult not to let attending meetings deteriorate into a perfunctory exercise. I’ve discovered a way to make meeting attendance more personal, more enjoyable, and more meaningful. I keep a meeting journal.

My journal has reminded me that listeners are as responsible for making good use of a message as speakers are for providing it, and that finding things of value in each meeting keeps me attentive—not a small boon for someone who, while her body matured, maintained the attention span of a preteen. Also, the commentary provides a record of what I consider worth remembering. That record will be available to my progeny—a start toward the journal I’ve not so far been able to maintain.

Sample entries include an insight from a Sunday School class that praying is useless without charity (see Alma 34:17–29) and deepened gratitude for a good marriage from a testimony borne on Fast Sunday. Sherilyn Cox Bennion, Bayside, California