A year ago, I wrote about what motivates me. Looking back, I’m grateful to see that the answer hasn’t changed. If anything, those motivations have grown stronger.

When I shared that post, I was deep in the process of rediscovering old manuscripts, research notes, and book ideas that had been tucked away for years. I remember the excitement of opening files and finding page after page of material I had forgotten I’d written. I also remember the frustration of running into corrupted files and forgotten passwords. Some days felt like a treasure hunt, and others felt like a dead end.

A year later, I can honestly say the treasure hunt continues.

I’ve spent many hours revisiting stories, organizing notes, and trying to bring some order to decades of work. What has surprised me most is not how much I wrote, but how much those stories still matter to me. Each manuscript represents an idea, a lesson, or a piece of history that I felt was important enough to preserve. Time has not diminished that feeling.

My family remains my greatest motivation. Every grandchild, every child, every ancestor whose story deserves to be remembered continues to inspire me. There are now even more branches on our family tree than there were when I first made that list of books for our grandchildren. Seeing our family grow reminds me why I started this project in the first place.

I’ve often thought about those ancestor stories I hoped to write. Some tell of courage. Some tell of sacrifice. Others tell of ordinary people who quietly endured hardships so future generations could have better lives. The older I get, the more I appreciate those ordinary heroes. Their stories deserve to be told.

I still feel a sense of urgency. Not the kind that creates panic, but the kind that encourages purpose. There are only so many hours in a day, and there are still many stories waiting to be written. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by what remains unfinished, I’ve learned to be grateful for every page completed and every memory preserved.

Financial challenges haven’t magically disappeared. They remain a reality, just as they were a year ago. But I’ve learned that progress isn’t measured only by money. It’s measured by persistence, determination, and the willingness to keep moving forward one step at a time.

Most importantly, my faith continues to sustain me. I still draw strength from the love of my Heavenly Father and from the love of family, both past and present. Those gifts continue to motivate me on difficult days and encourage me on the good ones.

So, a year later, I’m still here. Still writing. Still researching. Still believing these stories have a purpose and an audience, even if I don’t yet know who that audience may be.

And for that, I am grateful.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. And thank you for encouraging me along the way.

August 20, 2025

PROMPT:What motivates you?PROMPT: What motivates you?

Prompt: What motivates you?

The prompt’s question for today is: what motivates you? I can easily answer this question. What motivates me is the love of my family. It’s the love I feel from my Heavenly Father. It’s also the love I feel when I think of our Founding Fathers.

Each expression of love comes from deep inside me—deeper than my heart. I’ve felt the lack of that love from each, and it’s even more precious because I feel like I’m missing out. Not necessarily because of anything they are doing, or not doing, but because of my own misgivings.

I am very motivated to work on these manuscripts I’ve had, some, for a very long time. I want as many of them I can find to be prepared for my family to publish, if I can’t do it myself. I have a strong impression that these books each have an important message to give. To whom, I don’t know. Maybe its my family, maybe its someone I don’t know. But this has been a motivating force in my life for a while now. 

It is such a joy to open a file and discover that there’s a lot of material I left for myself to use. So much research! 

On the other hand, it is excruciatingly painful to see that the file is corrupted or I have forgotten the password. Yes, that hurts. But enough of them have opened successfully, that I’m on a cloud. 

I am not talking about one or two books. Nope, I had plans to write one book for each of our grandchildren, and dedicate it to that child. At the time, we had 16 grandchildren. I found the list. It included each child’s name and the topic of the book I intended to write. Each of the protagonists in the stories was an actual ancestor of that child.

For many years, genealogy was my hobby. I loved collecting the names and stories of our ancestors, many of them tragic, some uplifting, and I wanted a way to share this with our grandchildren.

So, all this is my motivating factor. I hope to complete as many as possible. And I’m in a hurry to do it. The only thing keeping me from fulfilling this is finances – a big hurdle these days, but one I’m determined to overcome.

Thanks for being here. And thanks for reading! Feel free to share please.