Commonplace Book

 A Commonplace Book. “Commonplace”, from the Latin 'locus communis', meaning “a theme or argument of general application.”  For me, it is a collection of thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, poems, observations, and quotes that stood out and caught my attention, some with comment, some without. Essentially a scrapbook, a repository of thoughts too good to just pass over and let go.

“We don't want to redraw the bull’s eye where we've been hitting. The target hasn't moved and we may need to improve our aim.”

(Priesthood/RS Lesson Sept 30, 2018)

“The Lord sees us as beautiful as the night time sky, each of us a star making a beautiful whole.”

(Wausau Stake Conference, August 29, 2015)

“[Priesthood] contains great redemptive power. To redeem is to re-judge, to re-assess, to repair and restore. The redemptive power of the priesthood is that power which allows a reassessment, a rejudgment of a situation, and a consequent change in accordance with that judgment.”

(Richard G. Ellsworth, Spiritual Experiences, BYU Devotional, July 23, 1985)

Speaking of Family History work, “After you find the first few generations, the road will become more difficult. The price will become greater. As you go back in time, the records become less complete. As others of your family search our ancestors, you will discover that the ancestor you find has already been offered the full blessings of the temple. Then you will have a difficult and important choice to make. You will be tempted to stop and leave the hard work of finding to others who are more expert or to another time in your life. But you will also feel a tug on your heart to go on in the work, hard as it will be.

“As you decide, remember that the names which will be so difficult to find are of real people to whom you owe your existence in this world and whom you will meet again in the spirit world. … In your reunion, you will see in their eyes either gratitude or terrible disappointment. Their hearts are bound to you. Their hope is in your hands. You will have more than your own strength as you choose to labor on to find them.”

(Henry B Eyring, Hearts Bound Together, April Conference 2005)

“Oh! if when we oppress and grind our fellow-creatures, we bestowed but one thought on the dark evidences of human error, which, like dense and heavy clouds, are rising, slowly it is true, but not less surely, to Heaven, to pour their after-vengeance on our heads; if we heard but one instant, in imagination, the deep testimony of dead men’s voices, which no power can stifle, and no pride shut out; where would be the injury and injustice, the suffering, misery, cruelty, and wrong, that each day’s life brings with it!”

(Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens)

“But some problems have no solutions, only better and worse ways of dealing with imperfection.”

(Robert J Samuelson, Why we don’t prepare for the future, Washington Post, 9/9/2018)

“The world is full of genuinely nice and kind people. If you can't find one, be one. One small act of kindness goes farther than you think.”

(Anonymous)

“Being self-reliant does not mean that we can do or obtain anything we set our mind to. Rather, it is believing that through the grace, or enabling power, of Jesus Christ and our own effort, we are able to obtain all the spiritual and temporal necessities of life we require for ourselves and our families.” (Facilitating Groups, page 12, published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)