I am so excited to share this with EVERYONE!! I'll admit that I'm not at all a great genealogist or that I've even started any family histories, but I've always had the excuse that I didn't know how to get started or there's other family members that are doing it, right?
Well, recently my mother started trying to get my grandparents on video telling their personal histories, but it's really hard to get the stories organized or even to get them telling new stories that we haven't heard. The other day a co-worker and I started talking about this and she told me about an article in the August 2003 Ensign titled "That Happened to You?" It's a great list of questions that are easy to answer and are organized according to phases of a person's life. This co-worker told me that she just e-mails her mother about 5 questions at a time and lets her take her time responding. When the gets the e-mail with the responses, she cuts and pastes it into a document saved on her computer for her mother's personal history. She's even getting stories that her mother never told her before like the time she was 12 and decided to take the family station wagon for a spin around the block and nobody in her family ever knew.
How awesome is that??!! It all sounds so simple. I can't wait to get these questions up to my grandparents' house and start hearing all the family gossip. Even just little things like I've never learned the names of all my grandpa's siblings. I might even start answering the questions for myself while I still remember what my childhood was like. So, I challenge you all to print out the article and start with yourself. In fact, I'd like you all to answer one of the questions right now as a comment to this post.
When did you begin to have a testimony of Jesus Christ? What memories do you have of Church meetings or activities?
that is a neat reference to have- thanks. I have been trying to talk to my grandparents about these things more too.
ReplyDeleteI think my testimony began with our Family Home Evening lessons. And was strengthened through watching siblings go on missions, growing older, and especially the shooting in high school.
Love you!
I think I always had a good feeling inside about the gospel. But I think the testimony inside got a lot stronger when I was in seminary and would do my own scripture reading. Then even more so when I went on my own mission and learned to keep the standards of the church. Now it happens when I see the kids in my Sunday class who actually pay attention to church history stories. It strengthens me and makes me so happy!
ReplyDeleteUm... Besides feeling that my baptism decision was the right choice, I would have to say when I heard my parents bare their testimonies for the first time. I knew they had testimonies before hand but it struck me how much the gospel touched (and still touches) them.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite memories of church was my family purposefully putting me in the middle or the end of the row on Fast Sunday because I would always go up and bare my testimony.
Girl's Camp was also a huge testimony and friendship builder; I have fond memories of those weeks.