Resistant. I’m sure that word is not a strong enough word to describe my hesitancy in keeping a gospel journal despite my devotion to my learning journal. I repeatedly heard the advice to keep a gospel journal to record the impressions I was receiving and what I was learning while studying my scriptures. Yet, after beginning, it was like another addiction!
I anxiously wrote down my thoughts and enjoyed reading them again. Memories and knowledge seemed to return to my mind as I perused the filled notebooks. Scriptures and stories came to mind. I was able to make connections that I would not previously made or even had made without keeping this most precious of books.
Here are my best tips:
- Pray before you sit down to read your scriptures. Invite the Spirit of the Lord into your life and mind, enlightening you with inspirations.
- Record all of your thoughts -even if it may seem silly.
- Prepare your materials the night before. I make sure to have my journal, scriptures, pen for the journal and a colored pencil.
- Mark your scriptures.
- Use graphics. I draw all kinds of things in my journal. Sometimes little doodles and other times small symbols or pictures.
- Ask the 5Ws and H (who, what, where, when, why and how).
- Use a graphic organizers. I like the K-W-L chart.
- Sometimes I will scribble notes down on a scrap piece of paper and later rewrite it intomy journal. This is especially helpful to me when I feel like I have part of a thought which isn’t fully developed.
What ways do you use your scripture journal?
By Tracy Atkinson
Tracy Atkinson, mother of six, lives in the Midwest with her husband. She is a teacher, having taught elementary school to higher education, holding degrees in elementary education and a master’s in higher education. Her passion is researching, studying and investigating the attributes related to self-directed learners. She has published several titles, including Calais: The Annals of the Hidden, Lemosa: The Annals of the Hidden, Book Two, Rachel’s 8 and Securing Your Tent. She is currently working on a non-fiction text exploring the attributes of self-directed learners: The Five Characteristics of Self-directed Learners.
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