Please Take Notes

... already a pastiche of glue, different coloured pens, etc ...

I was at Sunday School.

Eric was sitting beside me and said, “Please take notes. I have to go somewhere, but I want to know what is going on in here as well.”

Ordinarily I wouldn’t have taken notes for myself, but I get few requests from Eric of something he would like me to do.

I had some empty pages in my Brownline 2018 Day timer which is about to be retired in a few weeks anyway, and I began to write. The shape of the meeting was a video, “Implementation Training” which was more about how LDS people will use the two hours when they gather together each Sunday. Then we listened to the video vignettes from people at the top of the personnel structure speaking and then people from the ward. And the Bishop then wanted to talk.

I wondered how I was going to squeeze all of that down into notes for Eric.

As expected, Eric asked me what I got out of the whole experience. What I got out of it was probably what no other person did. That is, I had better get a journal for we are now all fellow gospel learners. And we are to take the notes from our scripture study during the week and talk about them in Sunday School.

So Catie and I went to the dollar store where I purchased my first scripture journal: “Sketch book / Cahier d’esquisses / Bloc de dibujo”. Pick your language. 9” x 12”. 60 lbs. 80 sheets. I tore my notes out of my daytimer and glued them into the flyleaf which I know is supposed to be left empty, but now I am down to 79 pages, so I can see they are going fast and I am gluing stuff everywhere. I split my notes between the front end paper and the fly leaf, copying the backs so the notes all over everywhere will only make sense to me.

This is going to be the hardest thing for me – just getting my ideas down without worrying about beauty, the ink bleeding through to another page, the organization of what goes there – even keeping the same kind of ink going? All of that is going to be hard to give up.

So what is going to go in this book for me?

Two things. The first is that I am going to take notes whenever there is scripture reading going on in any of the homes I visit. Just running notes about what I am hearing. Maybe even how people are reacting.

The bishop added his ideas.

He wants every hoe to be a refuge for our families
... full of love, rejuvenation, happyines ...

I can't take issue with that.

I am not going to like keeping all of this in one book. I am a sorter and a categorizer. On the other hand, I don’t want to sort until I have to carry another binder of stuff, since I move from one house to another quite often and need to minimize what I carry.

And I am not going electronic with my notes. 

For me this defeats the purpose of having of a pen and paper and keeping my finger right on a piece of text while I write about it.

I didn’t grab a 2019 manual at church.

I don’t want to carry one back to Alberta. Catherine told me that the text is all online. She and I tried to do a search and find it, since it shouldn’t be more than a couple of clicks away for me, lest my clicking take me elsewhere and I will be lost. I think that is yet to be sorted out.

I have had the journal for 2 days now. Tonight we had scripture study. I was too tired to go to the basement and grab my journal to take notes. Tonight Tom and I pre-empted the study of Mosiah to read the story of the nativity from Luke. I told Tom I thought every Christian should have that memorized. Then I found out that I can’t do the first part. I just start with the shepherds. But the part about going up to Bethlehem to be taxed isn’t in my memory bank. I shall try to put some of it there this season. I can’t do the Magnificat either, and in fact, I don’t even know what the means. More work to do, though I doubt this will come up in Sunday School this week.

Arta