Now, I hope you keep a journal, because it may be that someday in the future that the simplest thing you say may affect a significant change in someone else’s life – like this:

As part of my work, I was in the LDS archives searching through 19th century pioneer journals. I was more or less aimlessly thumbing through the diary of Thomas Bullock, an English convert to Mormonism. Now, he was later part of that Vanguard Company that came into the Salt Lake Valley first. But for the time I was reading, he was part of a company of saints ruthlessly driven out of Nauvoo, Illinois in September of 1846. Without adequate food, shelter or provisions, he and others were forced across the Mississippi River, and took up residence in a filthy slough. Bullock records the miracle of the quail that happened there.

Well, the poor camp had no means to travel, and nowhere to go. Bullock himself had been terribly ill with malaria. Well, finally rescuers came and loaded up many of those poor camp pilgrims for the 71-day trip across Iowa to Winter Quarters. Now, I read Bullock’s account as they moved across the prairies of Iowa.

Then I came to this entry – Friday October 16, 1846. This is what I read:

“Between 2 and 3 this morning Sister Joan Campbell was delivered of a child, which was dead. Immediately after delivery she was seized with a chill and in less than an hour she was a corpse. When she was driven from Nauvoo she was in perfect health, but living on the slough opposite and exposure brought on chills and then shakes, which has cut her thread of life – this is the effects of persecution by the Illinois mob.”

Well, that really affected me. The next day Joan Campbell was buried, and Bullock wrote this:

“About 3 Sister Campbell was laid in the grave. I read a portion of the hymns and Father Bosley prayed. Thus have I seen the Saints laid low in the wilderness, followed by one single mourner, having been banished from the land of their adoption by a brutal mob… on account of her religion.”

Now, I’ve read the stories of the saints’ persecution for decades, but it was never more real or meaningful until I read that story. These were real people, ordinary people like us. They were fathers, mothers, husband, and wives who loved, who lived, and who died tragically.

I am grateful to those at the time who were quick to observe and write it down. Why? – Because what once may have been considered mundane, even in their time, is now made most meaningful to me by time and perspective. And you know, I suspect that such things may happen again. Who is to say who will quote from your journal in the future, and what effect it will have?