Elder Eyring

On March 14th we attended a banquet hosted by BYU Idaho's President Kim B. Clark. President Eyring was there as well as Elder Ballard. President Eyring spoke and was introduced by his son Henry Eyring, who is a VP at BYUI. When Henry was introducing his father, he was praising him for many things, mostly what kind of a father he was. One thing he told us was that he knew what his father was going to do that night before he went to bed; He was going to write in his journal as he had done every night for as long as Henry could remember, then his dad would send that out electronically to all of his children.

When President Erying spoke, he talked a lot about what he did when he was President of Ricks College and then what marvelous things are going on there now that it is BYU Idaho. We were sitting two tables away from the podium and we both felt like he was looking right at us as he was speaking. At one point he mentioned that it was late and we might be getting tired (tired of listening to him? Never!). He went on to say that we couldn't be as tired as he was, he knew, because he had been up since 1:30 A.M. working on one of the 13 talks he would be giving in the following 3 weeks. All of the talks had to be written and proofed for publication! He said it took a lot of prayer and study to put those talks together. Then in humor he added, "and when you hear them you will say, 'was it worth it'?" He went on to tell us that the main thing in preparing his talks was finding out what the Lord wanted us to hear. He was so humble and so warm.

I was deeply touched by the fact that, given the day he had that day, and every day, he writes in his journal every night before he goes to sleep. I made a commitment right there and then to do the same thing (not send it out to my kids, but to write in my journal). I am a journal writer, but not every night. It was time for a new journal, my new goal was to write in it every day.

I can not express the gratitude I have for the blessings that have come to me already from this daily writing. FYI, I can write a whole page in 14 minutes, so it doesn't take that long. Coupled with my reading of the Book of Mormon, I can witness the hand of the Lord in my life.

If you are interested in knowing how you can be invited to this same banquet every year, plus other inspiring events connected to BYUI, let me know. You can leave a comment telling me you are interested, or email me at kathy_perrins@byu.net.