If so, what have you done with them.
I started looking back thru mine, they are so gushy I
Want to puke.. And burn them! I'm am so embarrassed of them:(

I found a few nuggets In my missionary journal tho..

[first day in mission field] "..had lunch with Pres and AP's.. got lectured about table manners and grooming"

[first day tracting] ..got a call back from a couple that holidayed in Utah.. They have a question about blacks and the priesthood and polygamy"

[first discussion given] "it went ok, she was deaf as tho, had to shout it at her"

"Went back to Joan's (the deaf lady) to do the 4th D. My companion made me do the law of chastity bit.. I had to yell CHASTITY about 4 times!"

"Had a dinner appt and bro n sis xxx, the whole family yelled at each other the whole time, then asked us to leave, weird"

"Today we made an audio tape of people's doorbells because sis xx wants to send it home to her boyfriend"

"Got a letter from my friend DT, who told me that she bumped into my dad in the carpark. He was sooo angry because he got a letter from Pres saying he wasn't to phone or try to see me, but could write weekly.. Man! I was so angry! Sis xx said he sends it to all parents, it's just a stat letter.. But wow, how insensitive! Geez, surely he should realise that some people have non-member parents!"

Anyway, I was going to throw them out, but now I'm going to read thru for a laugh.. I'll let u know any more gems!

My earliest stuff dates back to 1977 when I was nineteen. It's really, really bad poetry with biblical overtones. Couldn't you just die? I know I could. But I keep that stuff, and I own it.

I have kept a journal off and on over the last 50 years.

My motivation was the example my Mother left me.

She passed before my second birthday. The only way I was able to know her was through a five year diary she kept.

Similarly I had access to various pioneer journals.

Most recently I was given copies of journals from ancestors that came on the Mayflower.

A thoughtful journal can be of value to our families.

This year marks the fiftieth in which I have kept a journal. I started before I was born.

My journal is a real one, not a Morg one.

You were who you were and every bit of it, in its own way, has helped you to become who you are now.

Never throw away ANYTHING that you have written. It doesn't change the past it only erases it, and whatever lessons it may contain are erased with it.

Even if no-one ever sees our journals, they can also serve another excellent purpose. Periodic review, helps us to avoid rewriting our own past by preventing "memory drift." Our memory is not a "recording," it is a reconstruction. Sometimes bits of data get lost; the reconstructions get hazy and/or inaccurate.

The truth, however embarassing or painful, is not a thing that should be lightly tossed away. I have kept jouranls for many years and some of them I stupidly, short-sightedly, threw away. I wish that I hadn't thrown because they were a valuable reference that I regret no longer having access to.

thanks for sharing your thoughts. The value of a thoughtful journal is priceless, mine are kinda cringeworthy but you are right, it was me, and now I read through it, I see a snap shot of my life during those years. I'm amazed at who I was, sad at how unworthy I constantly felt. I'll definitely keep them.

I want to share one last portion, in itself it shows the value of them for it is hard to believe I had totally forgotten this episode.

We had two visits during 94/95 from V Dallas Merrell of the seventy. The mission got together to hear him speak..
Some stand out comments from his first visit:

"There are 12 discussions - 6 to convert to Christ, 6 to convert to the church"

"You belong to the church, you are the church's possession"

"Align yourself with the president, if you don't you will be accountable. You will have to explain yourself before the lord.

[more of that stuff]
He returned 7 months later,

I'll copy it out as it is written:

".. Elder Merrell was to be there, I was so excited- until I got there. We sat in the chapel for about an hour as Elder Merrell and President spoke in the foyer. The AP's came in and said they needed our sign books. [like a mission scrap book sighed by companions and friends in the mission]

Those that had them gave them in, then we sat in the chapel for 4 hours not allowed to leave, while elder Merrell and President looked through them. Then as we still sat in the chapel he spoke to each of the missionaries who had books and everyone who had written in them.

Elder Merrell came back in and said they were goofy, silly, filthy, pornographic, corrupt and had the spirit of antichrist.
He made a list of elders who were to be sent home. He called in Sister xx (my companion) She was so nervous, He rebuked her and said it was all trash. She told me whilst she was in the foyer with him, he also rebuked elder xx, said to him he was lying, that he was evil and the antichrist was in him. Wow the whole day was awful depressing. The atmosphere in the chapel was like on death row or something. Everyone was waiting to see who was next.

After about 5 hours elder Merrell came into the chapel and said the antichrist was deep in the mission. That there was a subculture of disobedience and if he had his way, half the mission would go home.

He yelled at us.

(X5 names) all went home. Elder Merrell searched through elder Mc's luggage that he had to retrieve from the flat and bring to the chapel, all the while mocking the contents, holding them up, throwing them on the floor.

The other night elder J rang our flat from home in the States. He said he got an honourable release, but the others didn't. He said president rang around the SP's and told them that they had been sent home for nothing. Elder Richard G Scott contacted President to offer them the option to return. None of them did."

Sorry for the length, I was shocked that I had forgotten such abuse in the mission. My next entry was just back to normal mission stuff.. Frikkin unbelievable!
Anyone know anything about this guy V Dallas Merrell? What a twat

Wow, wow, wow! What a horrible and humiliating experience.
Merrill sounded just a tad psychotic. I didn't see any attempt to justify his behavior in your journal. Maybe just moving on was the best you could do.

P.S. - In looking around for information about or by Merrill, I noted this from him. "My doctoral dissertation focused on how
to effectively get people to act, to introduce change, to train people to get real behavioral results."

So I guess one of his techniques was to publicly torture and execute a few people, more or less, in order to scare the bejeezus out of the rest so that they'll be more obedient.

http://www.priesthoodleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/WILL-YOU-Talk-by-V.pdf



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2015 08:17AM by seekyr.

"The floggings will continue until morale improves."

It would interesting to know what happened to those poor victims of his behavior-mod experiment.

Someone I knew had had a complete mental breakdown before I met her and had kept a detailed journal of the whole experience - the lead up to it, the complete breakdown and hospitalization, and her recovery. Months of it. She wanted so much to put it all behind her, however, that she destroyed the journal. I could understand her feelings, but I remember feeling like she'd thrown something very important away.

My name is Scott McKinley. I was the elder who V. Dallas Merril destroyed as he went through my luggage.
He accused me of horrific things, all in an attempt to find any reason to send me home and make me an example.
If anyone is interested, I could elaborate on this display of abuse on a deeply personal level.

My mission president was into aggressive business management techniques but nothing like that.

I heard that he held "Rank Sessions" where each elder was to stand up and everyone in the room was supposed to offer him advice on what he was doing wrong. The Elders who offered the most aggressive criticism were promoted to ZLs, APs. I knew several missionaries that were emotionally damaged by this. I only experienced a partial session because the MP was called out of the meeting, and the ZL stopped the session. The ZL was shaking at the time, it certainly wasn't the spirit of Christ present. I got transferred to a city far, far away from the MP and never saw him hold one of these again.

This sounds very much like what happened in the Melbourne Australia Mission around the same time...

Wow, coincidently visited here today after many months to see this old post revived.
Yes it was the Australia Melbourne mission. I served there '94 - 96. I'm Aussie currently living in Perth.

My journals became much more real when I found out my boyfriend was gay some 32 years ago and then married him. The one in the years after he left is pretty intense and more honest.

I've thought of throwing the sickening mormon ones, but I'll let my kids decide whether to throw them out or not. My mother will have been dead for 7 years this week and I've only barely scratched the surface of anything she wrote. There are quite a few scrapbooks in her closet and I look at them once in a while. (Their home is still "intact" as my brother lives there.) I have realized over the years that I don't need to read about her. I knew her well. She also wrote poetry about her life all her life and I've read a lot of that.

But I don't get the keeping journals now. There are very few of my journals that I think my kids would find interesting EXCEPT that maybe after I'm dead my daughter would read my journals and see that I was just like her in my 20s, too TBM. She wants to believe she is living her life entirely different than I have. She is doing things almost exactly like I did.

Mine are mostly when I was a teenager. Things why I thought my crush was attractive. If she talked to me that day. Ha ha. It is sad, pathetic, and definitely heartthrob.
Ridiculous garbage about my "revelations" from god. I have a hard time deciding which is more embarrassing.

As a birthday gift when I turned 13. It was bound in white leather and had my name inscribed in gold on the front. It covered five years, with about five lines allotted per day.

There was an agonizing account of my father's final month and death, and some very vivid material about how much I hated my mother and some of my teachers.

Also, some typical teen-age stuff about escapades with my best friend and crushes we had on TV stars.

I didn't want my kids to ever get their hands on it, so I ripped it to shreds and threw a handful of shreds out in the trash over a series of months, years ago.

When I first left that church decades ago, I re-read my mission journal just for a trip down memory lane.

I was horrified. Everything I had written was not personal, but an attempt to make myself sound like one of the prophets of old;one of God's conquering spiritual heroes. It made me sick and I burned it.

Don't do that. I wish I had kept it and could look one more time at some of the places and photos and people that were in there and just look past my need for self aggrandizement. I would enjoy it now and just be able to laugh at myself.

I did the mission journal thing for a while. I was not much of a writer back then. If I could have had a computer to type on, I probably would have done a better job. Anyways I only got a few months into my journal before I called it quits.

Stashed somewhere in my house I have all 100+ of my letters home to my family. It was a either weekly letter home or the MP came down on your ass. My parents gave them back to me when I came home. They are still probably in a box somewhere. We moved over the summer and I have yet to fully unpack everything.

If I find them, I might be tempted to reread them for the first time.

Yes. From the time I was about 8 to about age 28 I filled several journals. For a quite a while I wrote almost every night. After I married and had kids, I wrote a lot less. Probably because I didn't need the self-therapy of writing as often, and I didn't have a lot of time to myself. I'd never throw them away.

Some of it is embarrassing and cringe-worthy, but they are an accurate representation of the events and feelings in my life. It was really interesting when I stopped believing in the church to go back and read my old journals with new eyes. It helped me understand how manipulated and warped my perceptions had been.

I don't write much any more. I've had the same small-size journal since 2004, and it's finally just about full. I kind of wish I'd written more, because you do forget details about things that happen in your life. It would be nice to be able to refresh my memory.

BTW, one of the things I wished I would have written more about was my exit from the church. But since I didn't, I went back and printed off my posts from this board and put them in a notebook. This is important stuff to remember.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2015 03:13PM by imaworkinonit.

Mine go back about 15 years and are specifically devoted to 'spirit' experiences ----- that is what I try to have.

The journal helps me track progress and remember things that I really want to recall sometimes.

I make journal entries a number of times each week.

My cousin just sent me a 3-ring notebook full of letters my mother had written her mother-in-law (my grandmother).

What a treasure trove. Some of the letters revealed how my father acted as a young married man (some of which I was very familiar with, such as he couldn't be bothered with his two daughters, and obviously favored one son over another). How some of his children prospered (or not) with him as their father, is evident in our adulthood character.

I worked to be an achiever (to "prove" myself worth more than he seemed to think), and a brother of mine became an alcoholic trying to shore up his self-confidence (which was battered down by our father).

My parents moved to Calif. soon after their marriage, and stayed there, so a lot of letter writing took place to "grandma".

Thanks to my grandmother saving these letters, and my cousin sending me the notebook full of them, I know a lot more than I did about the family's personalities and history. (In those days, it was far too expensive to phone each other.)

History has proven the value of letter-writing, and I think we do miss something valuable by just communicating by phone.

...no! When the cops bust in, they go straight for your journal!!! DON'T DO IT!!!

I look at the stuff I wrote last week and I'm embarrassed.

I would write fake journals when I was a teenager. I did it to throw my mother off of what was really going on in my life. She would constantly ransack my room and go through every inch of it.

I would write crazy stuff just to push her buttons. That's how I knew for sure she was going through my room.

I played an emotional cat and mouse game with her until I was 30. That's when I cut almost all contact. The woman is nuts.

My mom is the same. To this day a dirty snoop. I was an avid poet/artist as a child & her snooping caused me to cease my writing pretty early on. She would also find and read letters other people had written to me in high school and flip out.


I write as much as I can now. I have a composition book for each year full of writing, sketches, rituals, & the like. When my parents visit now, I still lock that shit up.

My oldest ex mo brother just told me that she had discovered some of his sex toys when they had stayed at his house last. So she must have been looking hard. Then she cornered him 4 times afterwards to say with malice, "I just know you're living in sssssin..."

He's a 43 yro divorcee. Sad isn't it?

My mother was never allowed to be alone in my house once I moved away from home. Not even for 5 minutes.

She would burn any art that I did, especially abstract stuff that she didn't understand. She always thought that My art and writing were full of evil hidden meanings.

She was right about the hidden meanings. Most of it was about the misery of life under the same roof with her. She was hell bent on making my life miserable. She didn't let up for a minute when I moved out of the house. For several years I didn't have a phone because I didn't want her calling me.

I finally told her she was no longer welcome in my life. Last I heard she's still living, but she's been dead to me for almost 30 years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2015 03:39PM by madalice.

I'm sure it hasn't been easy, but good for you. She sounds atrocious.

I kept a journal after I was diagnosed with cancer. It is amazing how being sick with a serious illness sparks thoughts that have never arisen before in your mind. After my successful treatment I stopped writing. I guess since I was not going to die from the cancer that I am no longer troubled by concerns of what comes next.

I did exactly the same thing when I had cancer. I mostly started the journal to keep track of all the appointments and meds. I threw in a few thoughts here and there.

As soon as I was out of the woods I quit writing. I gave away the puzzles I worked on, and threw out the books about cancer. I was done. Time to move on. I seldom think about it anymore.

I took a stab at writing a diary as a young teen but lost interest. Now, with finding my birth family and wanting to write down as much as I can remember from my life, I am about 1/2 way through writing an anecdotal account of my life.

Ron Burr

Even before I had any dream of leaving the fold, I came across the journal I kept (sporadically) when my two oldest children were toddlers. I was trying so hard to be the perfect wife and do all I should do on the piddly little bit of money we made from hubby being a lowly enlisted serviceman and trying to figure out why I could never seem to do right by him. It was probably 15 years later when I found the journal.

I started reading through it and was just nauseated. I wanted to find that girl and hug her and tell her to just stop being so hard on herself and to kick that asshole to the curb (which I had finally done). I threw it in the fireplace and just stared at it watching it burn. Even though I was still active in church, I cried so hard wishing I'd never bought into the whole stupid stupid stupid "role of women" thing. I could not stand to read anymore of it.

I never wrote in them as a Mormon and I don't now. I tried to and it just didn't stick with me. The only thing I remember ever writing in a journal is when I had to put my cat down.

My mother kept a journal, off and on. I read it, and she had written poetry in it--really good poetry--in fact, brilliant poetry. I went to my mother, amazed, and said that she should have those poems published--she should have been a writer! She grinned and said, "Oh, those are Wordsworth. I had to memorize those in school."

I'm glad I kept a journal, because it keeps my history honest. I have proof of all my experiences, all my romances, adventures, travels, etc. Otherwise, living a very dull, single life, I might think I dreamed it all up. But, I really did all those things, was all those things--until an abusive temple marriage and the Mormon church tried to kill everything. When I was left wondering, "Who am I?" I read my diaries.

Don't you dare throw anything away!

Your entries that you shared with us are priceless!!!! Thank you!

I have lost a lot of thoughts that I had recorded in word processor files due to hard drive failures and failing to maintain backups. Really though, I don't think that I lost out on much. My journal writing back then consisted of a lot of spiritual blather and attempts to see the hand of God in every little thing that happened in my life.

I had a mission journal that I threw in the trash a couple of years ago. About 400 handwritten pages and many wasted hours went into the garbage bin. Some people here have expressed regret for doing that very thing. So far, I have not felt even an ounce of regret. I still remember very well who I was back then, and frankly, I don't wish to be reminded of it ever again. I am embarrassed by it all. I can only look back on that time of my life with shame and embarrassment.

I still record my thoughts from time to time in on online journal that I now keep. The nice thing is that I don't have to worry about backups anymore. My journal is primarily for my own benefit - I don't really care about posterity like I once did. I like to see how my thoughts and feelings evolve over time.

The one funny thing to me though is this....back in the day (1970s-1980s), the church actively encouraged members to keep journals. We were following the example of Nephi who kept a record of his days. But nowadays, the church says nothing about it at all. I have even heard that General Authorities these days are expressly forbidden from keeping a journal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2015 03:55AM by Strength in the Loins.

Really, GA'a can't keep a journal? I wonder why that is? I guess if they write down their real thoughts and feelings something might slip out.

Thanks everyone for all your thoughts and interesting comments..
I guess I'll just put them back on the bookshelf for now.

When I went through my journals, I discovered that I'd used them more like therapy. I only wrote in them when I was depressed and needed to talk, or I was going through a big struggle.

There could be a few years between an entry, but I only seemed to write when things weren't going well.

I only kept a few select pages which were about a special memory and then I burned the rest. I realized that I didn't want future generations reading all of that.

They'd come away feeling like I was a majorly depressed person and I'm not. There has to be something specific in my life which is bringing me down and unfortunately, those are the times that I wrote in my journal.

There were also a LOT of filler pages in there. "Worked today. Not much happened." Boring! I only wrote on those days because I was supposed to write in a journal and I was trying my best to keep it up.

Gushy. Good adjective. My old journals make me wince, I was so out of touch with myself, just parroting the church line like a mantra in a desperate hope to feel "right" whatever that meant.

One thing that woke me up was reading something by a super religious Catholic that had the same over-gushiness. It made me really uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as realizing, even then, that I sounded just the same.

I keep a journal. For awhile I regularly deleted them.

Then I had one that covered 3 years and comprised of 350,000+ words. It was banal and vapid and embarrassing but I did not delete it because it seemed like such an effort. So I still have it. It got to the point where it took a full minute to load so I started a new one. That only has 150,000 words now.

I had a journal only on my mission. At the end of the week I would try to remember what had happened and wrote it down. It was more of an enhanced daily planner. I put some postcards and photos in it from different cities. Besides flipping through it every ten years or so, I haven't read it. I'll probably toss it out one of these days.

Yes, and still do, off and on.

Journaling is a well established therapeutic exercise.

I wrote some in middle school through part of college. They are somewhere in my house. I'm going to throw them away when I find them.

I was an avid writer in my youth; partly due to the church, and also having an english class in high school that required it of me.

When I went on the mish, I was not very faithful. I was actually escaping loneliness. You see, my boyfriend at the time went on his mission, and I sadly was left alone. So in a nutshell, I lied thru my eyeteeth, and went.

In the beginning I wrote daily, mostly of the days transpirings. It records what time I awoke, time we left our apt, riding a bike in a downpour, etc.

But other entries really detail, with great feeling i should add, of just how crappy I was feeling. Most of you who went on missions, have certain memories of certain individuals, well, I was That Individual.

My mission had an "underground" network. If you wanted to get high, get laid, screw off, there were "key," people you went to. For those Elders who thought crossing the line with sex, was too great, they came to me. I was the Elder who gave great service. Go figure! Oral was moral in those days!

So in my journal, I recorded events, in a cryptic form of my Native language. You might even say that I invented my own version of reformed Egyptian!

I have my journals, and every now and then I dig them out my hope chest, and read a page or two, you know, for old times sake.

Write that book!!

extensively, which probably has a lot to do with my being able to keep track of MORmON things enough to know that MORmON leaders continually LIE about THE (MORmON) church and MORmON doctrine on a regular basis.

I've kept a daily diary since 1991 -- handwritten, and the same small red book, one for each year. I started as a well educated adult and well after serious cracks developed in my belief in Mormonism. Consequently, there's not much in them that would embarrass me in retrospect.

I keep a journal for myself and for my kids. The first week of each year I find time to read the previous year's journal. It's instructive to see how much time is consumed with inconsequential activities. Nevertheless, much is recorded there that's fun to revisit.

I wrote ever since I could do so. After my partner died suddenly, and I had only his journals, I realized how he never would have wanted his children or other family members to see them. I realized that my journals could be handed over to those who had shunned me in the event of my death, "answers," love and a gift of myself I would rather take to my grave.

I burned almost everything, and it was like killing a part of myself, but also very freeing. Those things I used to write down, I now live.

yes, because the church told me to. And like the good little mormon girl I was, I did.

It did work like some kind of therapy at times.
I've read some of it back, especially one I kept during the early days of marriage and I feel so sad for the girl I was then.

So full of self blame and such low self esteem. I'd write about having had an argument with the husband and then say: "I need to be more humble and listen to him, he holds the priesthood .."

ugh..
heart breaking.

I've written in journals before I got sucked into the cult, as I happen to like writing. The thing is, the cult made journal writing into a chore to the point where I didn't write in a journal for years after I left. I'm back into journal writing a bit, but it certainly isn't Mormon-approved since it often contains recipes and notes for my hobby of home brewing alcoholic drinks.

I carried my journal with me everywhere and wrote in it constantly while on my mission. It was my way of dealing with all the stress. I can no longer find it.

Writing in a journal daily is a habit that I have picked up again later in life. I don't write the day to day tripe but rather the insights I have and anything I deem valuable that adds to my knowledge and understanding.

(2nd contribution to this post):

I made copies of all the letters I wrote, and put these into 3-ring binders. I consider these copies as 'journals'.

I think I have about 30-40 or more of these (stored up too high for me to get out, unless I need to).

Also, I have a genealogy-minded daughter who would like to inherit these (but, until then, I have more storage area than does she, so they are still with me). (We live in the same town.)
-----

In addition, I wrote a list of my stuff that the kids (5) will inherit, so I gave each a copy, to put their name next to what they would like most. (Some trading may go on between them, after I'm gone, which is OK with me.)

Strangely, I have a large electric mixing bowl, which is strong enough to mix my (family's) favorite recipe for sugar cookies, and which is what my son in Tenn. says he would like most.

(Now, a copy of this email will make it into my 'save emails' file.)

I tried because it was a commandment of some sort...but it wasn't my thing. So after two attempts, I said, "The hell with it!"

Journals are a good thing in that they show us where we have come from. Some of my teenage journals help remind me of how I actually was rather than what I remember myself being.

Missionary journals are not reliable sources however.

You are either a journal keeper or you are not. If you have a collection of started but not completed journal books get a clue and except journal keeping isn’t for you.

Rubicon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You are either a journal keeper or you are not.

Not true. I'm an intermittent one so fall in the middle.

I kept journals religiously for the first few years in LDS.inc. I absolutely cringe when I read them. I was so brainwashed, all I thought about was mormon stuff, it’s almost scary.
But still, I’ve kept them. It’s still my history even though I don’t like it.
As the years went on, my writing got sloppy and I sound/look unstable. It’s evidence to me of what that so called relgion did to me.
I still write in a journal now, but with huge gaps in between. And I don’t write updates, it’s mostly to get my thoughts down on paper.
My descendants are gonna be some very confused people.

Yes I kept journals, a lot of them.
I still have a whole bookshelf filled with them. Its kind of embarrassing to go back and read how delusional I was as a MORmON, but c'est la vie, no?

Not on a regular basis, but I am writing my history down to pass along to my grandchildren

Yes, but I never kept the habit going. Using the computer a lot I suppose I could create content about my life but too lazy to do it.

Journaling is far from being a Mormon thing.

It has so many beneficial possibilities and so few downsides. I've done it off and on since I was about 15 years old.

Pictures are also a precious part of life. There are only 5 or 6 of me and that's sad.

There are only 3 or 4 of my father.

He journaled daily for many years and took pictures of his travels as a salesman. Mostly sunrises and sunsets.

He left them all to me.

Your posterity can never know how normal they are unless they read your corny, insecure and miraculous nonsenses.

I love taking pictures of sunrises and sunsets, babies and wrecks on the highways.