Rachel’s Journal

By Debbie Gibson

My friend Rachel Driggs has a book without any words or pictures. It looks like a real book on the outside, but on the inside the pages are empty. I laughed when she showed it to me the first time. I told her that even I could read a book like that, and I’m only five.

The other day Rachel showed me her book again. Now there are pictures of Rachel and her sister and brothers, and she has written something about them under their pictures. She also wrote about her vacation and school, and she even wrote about me!

Rachel is only six, so she does what you call dictating to her mother; then her mom writes it down and Rachel copies it into her book. Sometimes instead of writing she will draw pictures. She drew one of a birthday party she went to.

Rachel told me her book is called a personal journal—personal means that it’s yours and no one else should write in it unless they ask you. She said that our prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball, has asked everyone to keep a journal so we can leave our histories for others. Rachel’s brothers, who are ten and twelve, and her sister, who is sixteen, keep journals too.

Rachel’s mother does genealogy work. That’s where you learn about relatives and other people who have lived on earth. Rachel’s mom said if those people had all kept personal journals we could learn a lot more about them.

At first I thought Rachel’s empty book was kind of silly, but not anymore. Now it’s like a storybook all about her. I told my mom I want a journal, too, so I can write a storybook about me. She said she was glad that I wanted one and that it would be a treasured possession one day. Mom is even going to take dictation from me.

Hey! Why don’t you ask for a book with empty pages in it? I’ll bet you have a lot to write about too.