Why My Missionary Book Is Personal to Me

My daughter was serving her mission in Texas when I realized how much of my own mission had almost slipped away. The letters survived only because my mom kept them in a binder in a closet. That binder is one reason My Missionary Book exists.

In This Article

• How a binder of letters from Chile started My Missionary Book

• A mission can shape a life

• Preserving what is easy to take for granted

• Why My Missionary Book exists

• A mission record is family history

• What I would tell a family starting today

• Frequently asked questions

How a Binder of Letters From Chile Started My Missionary Book

While my daughter Brooklyn was serving her mission in the Texas Dallas East Mission, I went back to my own mission records.

My mom had saved the handwritten letters I sent home from Viña del Mar, Chile, where I served from 1999 to 2001. I also had photographs from that time, taken back when cameras used film. I typed up my mission journal and letters, then sent them to Brooklyn one week at a time.

Reliving that experience more than twenty years later was unexpectedly meaningful. It helped me remember the people, experiences, and lessons that had shaped me. It also made me realize how difficult it can be to bring an important chapter of life back together after the fact.

That experience sparked the idea for My Missionary Book.

A Mission Can Shape a Life

Being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a central part of my life. My son is currently serving in the Georgia Atlanta Mission, speaking Spanish. Missionary work is part of our family culture, and it has shaped the way we see service, family, and the world around us.

For 18 months to two years, a missionary sets aside many of their own plans and priorities to focus on serving others. They meet people whose lives, cultures, and circumstances may be very different from their own. They learn to listen, adapt, care, and see beyond themselves.

My mission did more than give me meaningful memories. It changed the direction of my life.

Some of my closest friends today are friends because of the time we shared in Chile. Nate Skousen, whom I met on my mission, became a close friend and my college roommate. While Nate and I were roommates at Roman Gardens, we each married roommates from our apartment complex.

Nate and I also had the opportunity to write a software program that helped our mission track goals and metrics. Years later, he remembered that experience when he told me about an opening on the business intelligence team at Ancestry. At the time, I was a software developer at Epic and looking for a change. That conversation led to an important new chapter in my career.

In ways both obvious and unexpected, my mission experience has touched nearly every part of my life.

Preserving What Is Easy to Take for Granted

Missionaries today have a distinct advantage. Their experiences are already being documented through typed emails, digital photos, and tools like Google Photos. But because that material is so commonplace, it can be easy to discount or take for granted.

Those emails and photos may feel ordinary in the moment, but together they become the record of a remarkable season of life. They hold:

• Stories from difficult days

• Funny moments with companions

• Pictures of the people being served

• Reflections on lessons learned

• Glimpses of everyday life far from home

Any one of those emails looks small on its own. Together, week after week, they add up to the most detailed record most of us will ever have of who we were at that age.

Why My Missionary Book Exists

That is why My Missionary Book exists.

I was fortunate to be working at Storied, where we already had a world-class book publishing experience on which we could build. My Missionary Book helps families preserve the emails and photos missionaries are already sending home, then turn that record into a lasting hardcover keepsake. There is no extra app for the missionary to manage and no need for families to spend countless hours organizing messages after the mission ends.

For more practical guidance, see how missionary families can keep a mission journal and how to preserve missionary photos and emails.

A Mission Record Is Family History

A mission eventually ends, but its stories, lessons, relationships, and impact do not have to fade into an inbox.

The emails, photos, and reflections from a mission are family history. They are a firsthand record of who someone was, whom they served, and how they changed. Preserved together, they can become one of the most meaningful family-history artifacts we leave for our children, grandchildren, and generations to come.

That is why this work feels personal to me. We are helping families preserve a chapter of life that can shape who someone becomes.

What I Would Tell a Family Starting Today

If I talk to families with missionaries going out today, it would be this: the record is the easy part, and putting it back together later is the hard part. These are the key takeaways I have drawn from both sides of that experience:

• A mission lasts 18 months to two years, but the way it shapes a person lasts decades.

• The record is already being created. Your missionary is writing it (and taking pictures of it) every week.

• Capturing it as it arrives can simplify the process.

• Once it is a printed book, it stops being a folder no one opens and becomes something your family actually holds.

If you have a missionary in the field, or one who is about to leave, get started with My Missionary Book. Setup takes just a few minutes, and everything your missionary is already sending home starts being saved from that day forward.

Fortunately, if you did not start at the beginning, or your missionary is already home, it is not too late. My Missionary Book makes it easy to assemble a mission record from emails already captured in someone’s inbox, so families can still bring those stories and photos together into a lasting keepsake.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is My Missionary Book?

My Missionary Book captures the weekly emails and photos your missionary is already sending home, organizes them chronologically, and turns that record into a hardcover keepsake book. Families get a dedicated email address to add to the weekly letter, and everything is saved automatically as it arrives.

Why did you build it?

Because I lived the alternative. I spent a long time typing up handwritten letters and journal entries from a binder my mom had saved for twenty years so I could share my mission with my daughter while she served hers. It was worth doing, and it was harder than it needed to be. Missionaries today are already creating a far better record than I had. It just needs to be caught before it scatters.

Does my missionary have to do anything extra?

No. There is no app for them to manage and nothing new to remember each week. They add one email address to the weekly letter they are already writing, and that is it.

Can we start if our missionary is already partway through the mission?

Yes. Capture begins the day you set it up, and earlier emails can be added afterward. Starting at the beginning of the mission gives the most complete record, but families who start mid-mission still end up with a meaningful book.

What if our missionary has already come home?

Check the church-issued email account right away. Those accounts are deleted roughly 60 days after service ends, and there is no recovery once they are gone. If family members saved any of the weekly emails in their own inboxes, those can still be gathered together. Our guide on how to preserve missionary photos and emails walks through the options.

Is a mission record really family history?

I think it is one of the clearest examples of it. A mission record is a firsthand account, written in the moment, of who a person was and how they changed. That is exactly the kind of document families wish they had from previous generations.