Getting Started

Wow. This is a bit of a change of pace for me. We will see how this goes and hope that we are successful. I have previously blogged only on the Fontano Family Blog. That was a lot of fun when we all contributed but unfortunately it has pretty well died. This is a bit of a different forum as I am aiming for more of a personal journal and family history of sorts.

As a young man I received my Patriarchal Blessing and in it I am told to keep a journal. I started that primarily as a missionary in the South Africa Cape Town Mission. I was completely inconsistent in my journaling at the start. One night we were showing a video to some investigators that inspired me to begin keeping my journal daily. That was late in 1994. Since that time I have never missed a day. Impressive right? Well, try and read it. My handwriting is terrible. You would think that I would have incredible handwriting after 16 years but such is not the case. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so good. My favorites are the days when I fall asleep while writing. There have also been times when my entries have followed the same theme over and over again.

In any case, I have felt a need for quite a while to make some changes to my journaling. I have been thinking about simply doing an electronic journal in Word but then I was invited to follow a friends blog a week ago. I was extremely impressed with how nice her blog is and all the fun things she does. I've started out somewhat basic here but I may borrow some of her creativity to help enhance this record. Special thanks to Heidi Gilmore for the inspiration.

I am going to attempt to make this fun, uplifting and historical. My goal will be to focus on the positive in life. I have done my best to maintain that in my journaling and will continue that here. I remember giving a presentation on journaling to a group of Relief Society sisters one night in the Highlands Ward in Lakeland Florida. While discussing recording the positive things in our lives one sister raised her hand to challenge me on the point. She so badly wanted me to validate her spending time recording all the bad stuff about life. How depressing is that? Not saying that I haven't had hard times or that I look at life through rose colored lenses, I don't. I have had moments where I have recorded some very difficult things. The last two years of my life have included painful experiences and moments of tremendous sadness. Much of it is recorded in my journal but included with it is record of the blessings that came during these times.

I believe that there is great strength that comes to us as we recognize the Lords hand in our lives. Certainly we can focus on all that is wrong in our lives and we can probably fill volumes with it but what is the value in that? We should keep record of our trials and afflictions as they are part of our lives but in that record we should take time to ponder and to look for the Lord. We will find that He is there, that He is aware of who we are and that He is able to deliver us. Doing so strengthens our faith and affords us the opportunity to record our testimonies of the Savior. Is there are greater gift that we can give to our posterity?

Many years ago I found a scrap of paper that had a little poem on it. The note was written by my grandfather, Alfred Walter Fontano. I don't know if he is that author of the little saying or if it was written by another but I like to believe he wrote it. He loved writing little poems and the saying certainly reflects the man that he was. It said:

Don't look at the flaws as you go through life
And even if you find em
Tis wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look at the virtues behind em

That has been who I want to be for many years. I am not very good at it but I hope to see others for their potential as a son or daughter of God and not for the weaknesses they may have now. I hope to see the events in my life in the same light and that is what I will attempt to record. There will be personal feelings and experiences as well as family experiences. I hope this to be a fun thing for me and for those who share in it.

Okay, I was done but now have to say that the spell checking feature in the blogger is very nice. I suddenly became a much better speller. I never found a journal with that feature.