The Missionary Journal of Richard Adams Pilling

Missionary Journal of Richard Adams Pilling

I was telling Bonnie Wyora that many years ago Charlie Ursenbach came over to my house with a co-worker who was out collecting original manuscripts to house in the archives in Salt Lake City.

Kelvin’s father and mother had a trunk of precious items which they donated to the church, so I had known about this project.

Doral had given me an old journal of his grandfather’s and Charlie asked if I would like to give it up.

They said that they would send me a photocopy of the journal and they would have it housed in a safe environment.

Page 1 of 200

I couldn’t give up the book, but told them that I would be happy to give them the photocopy and I would keep the original.

That wasn’t what they wanted and they left.

 Over the years I have opened the journal and tried to read some of it.

I did that again today and have transcribed the first paragraph, thinking that others might find it as charming as I do.

Richard Adams Pilling went on a mission as an older man.

He was born in 1857 and the first entry in this journal is dated 1911.  He would have been 54 years old.

Enlargement of pg 1.

I guess from my present point of view, that doesn’t make him really old, but from the point of view of the 19 year old missionaries that we usually see, he did have time on his side.

Here is the first paragraph of his 200 page hand written journal:

March 21.1911
i went to Salt Lake & was examined by dr Seymor B young and was Pronounced OK & went to the temple and was Set Apart fore my mishion By Apostle J.W. McMurrin & went to Layton sayed Al knight with uncle Elias Adams had a good visit.

Such a treat to read.  Bonnie and I continued on with our sorting project but it was hard to put his volume down in order to keep our minds on the larger goal to just figure out the larger categories of what I have collected.

Arta