note taking at church

For some reason I've been feeling the desire to write and post lately, but of course that means I need a topic. Often I'll think of things while I'm driving, and then by the time I get home, it's gone. Today while sitting at church next to a friend I found a topic to write about (and I remembered it long enough to actually make a post about it).

I have a notebook that I use to take notes of the talks at church. As I was sitting next to my friend in Stake Conference today (and a different friend last night), I wondered what she thought. Did she think I was a bit of a fanatic? But there's a reason I take notes. My brain is a sieve.

It all started a few years ago. I realized that I would go to special church events like Know Your Religion (which program is no longer in existence) and Ed Week at BYU. I would pay money (nominal fee that it is, it's still costing me something) and then take notes because I wanted to learn. I had paid for that knowledge to come my way.

At regular church meetings I would listen and feel good about the meeting, but shortly after if you had asked me about the talks, I wouldn't be able to tell you the topics. I just knew that listening helped me-- let me feel the spirit, uplifted me. But was I actually soaking in any info? any doctrine?

Then I wondered if I should take notes at regular Sunday meetings, too. Didn't I think that worthy things were said in sacrament meeting, just as at Ed Week? I decided that there were plenty of wonderful things that the members shared, even if they weren't experts or professionals. I started taking notes.

Now, I rarely go back and study these notes. That's the next step in my journey. But for now, I know that if for no other benefits, taking notes helps me to focus and pay attention to what is being said. Also, the act of writing helps me to remember.

Once I had someone come to me and ask me for a copy of my notes from a few Sundays previous for a friend of hers that hadn't been able to attend. I thought it was nice that I could help her in that manner.

tangent:
I wish I could take notes during temple sessions! As it is, in order to help me pay attention during the sessions I either keep repeating everything that is said, I pretend to type it out on the keyboard in my head, or I spell it out in the sign language alphabet--though I am really slow at that so I usually just aim to form just the first letter of each word.