Gathering it all: letters, photos and posts.
Your LDS missionary's mission is in several places: their weekly emails, in your inbox and in their @missionary.org account; their photos, on their phone and perhaps in Google Photos; and any posts on Facebook or Instagram. Start with the email account, because it closes about 60 days after they're released.
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The email account first.
Some of what's in their @missionary.org account isn't saved anywhere else, such as mail from their mission president, companions and friends.
Your missionary can save it with Google Takeout, on a computer, while the account is open. They sign in to their own account to do it. Save your missionary's email account has the steps, written for them.
The emails in your inbox.
The weekly emails you received stay in your own inbox after the mission account closes. A label or folder just for them makes them easy to find.
If your missionary wrote some family members separately, ask them to keep those letters too.
Their photos.
Their photos are on their phone, and may be backed up to Google Photos. If they are, Google Takeout can export the whole library at once, signed in to the account that has them.
Companions, senior couples and members they served with may have photos your missionary never had. Ask for them while those friends are easy to reach, by email or a shared album.
Their posts.
If your missionary posted on Facebook or Instagram during the mission, they can download their own posts from the app, under Export your information.
An export can take a while to be ready, so ask for it early, and download it once it is. Posts you made about the mission can be exported from your own account the same way.
Paper and files.
Letters on paper, the mission call letter, their talks, a map of their mission: scan them, or photograph them flat in good light, so they are kept with the rest.
Their journal is theirs. If they'd like to share parts of it, let them choose which.
Who's who.
Sit with them over the photos and write down names and places while they are fresh. A list kept beside the photos is enough.
All in one place.
Keep everything together: one folder on a computer, with the emails, photos, posts and scans side by side, and a copy kept somewhere else.
Ours is the Mission Archive. The weekly emails can come in from an export of the mission email, the photos from a Google Photos export, and their Facebook or Instagram posts, stories and reels, each at its date, all at once instead of one at a time. See how the imports work.
When it is all together, read turning their emails into a book: the ways to do it.
Where this comes from.
The steps in this guide are ours. Its one date, when the mission email account closes, comes from save your missionary's email account, checked in November 2026.
Bring it all in at once.
The weekly emails, photos, posts, stories and reels can come into your missionary's Mission Archive all at once, each at its date, ready to become a book.
See how the imports work