One question a week

A biography in their own words. Nothing invented.

A biographer asks your missionary one question on their preparation day, saves the answer word for word, and writes their story from their letters, their answers, and the facts your family confirmed — then checks every line of the draft back against those same sources.

Biographer

A letter names someone once and never again. Today your missionary knows exactly who that was — in ten years, there may be no one left to ask.

Begin their archive See the demo archive
  • The writer may put quotation marks only around words that appear verbatim in its source — their own letters and answers, and, in the mission president's chapter, the counsel your family logged.
  • The story chapters — the opening, each area's, and the mission president's — are read sentence by sentence against their letters, their answers, and family-confirmed facts, and what those sources do not support is cut. The country and cities chapters are sourced place notes, labeled as context rather than story.
  • One question per preparation day, in a chat room of its own — it waits for the answer before asking another, and moves on after two preparation days of silence.
  • Answers are saved exactly as written and paired with the question they answer.
  • Every new draft arrives unaccepted, with the previous draft kept, so nothing you have not read carries your approval.

How it works

1

One question, on preparation day

Each P-day, in a chat room that holds nothing else, the biographer asks one short question: how a name is spelled, who someone was, what became of them. It waits for the answer before asking another, and after two preparation days with no reply it moves on to a different question.

2

Their answer, kept word for word

The reply is saved exactly as written and paired with the question it answers. Only whoever runs the archive can read the room. When an answer opens something new, the next question follows it.

3

Composed from sources, then checked

Each area's chapter is written from their letters from that area, their answers, and the facts your family confirmed — then a fact-check pass reads the draft sentence by sentence against that same material and cuts what it does not support. The country and cities parts are reference notes from public sources, labeled as context. Your family reads it, edits it, or accepts it.

On the printed page

What ends up in the book

  • Each area's chapter, told week by week and quoting their own words — followed by their letters from that area, printed in full under the heading "The letters from" that place.
  • What they told the biographer, folded into the chapter for the area they were serving in during the week the question was about — quotable, because the words are theirs.
  • "This area, to remember" — the tastes, customs, and funny moments drawn from their letters, beside the companions and the people taught there.
  • An "About" note on a town wherever public sources carry one, drawn from those sources and labeled as context — kept separate from their story.
  • A closing page: "In their own words. Never invented." — with a line stating every page was composed from their letters and answers and checked against them.

Questions

Does our missionary have to log in or install anything?
No. The biographer writes to them in a Google Chat room of its own, introduces itself once, and asks one short question on their preparation day. They answer there as they would any message. If chat is not connected, the same questions go by email the day before P-day, answered by reply.
What keeps the biographer from making things up?
The narrator may write only what appears in their letters, their answers, and facts your family confirmed, and may put quotation marks only around words that appear verbatim in that source. A separate fact-check pass reads the draft sentence by sentence against those sources and removes what they do not support. Figures of speech are flagged first, so a metaphor is read for its meaning.
What say does our family have over each chapter?
When a chapter is written you get a notification: review it, edit it, or accept it. On the Before the Mission part you can also direct the biographer in your own words, and those directions carry into its later drafts. On any part you can rewrite the text yourself, restore an earlier draft, or ask for a fresh one — four drafts per part. A rewritten chapter always returns as an unaccepted draft.
Can our family ask questions too, and why are the biographer's so short?
Yes — pick up to five of your own per letter; they ride along. The biographer's are short by design: a paragraph asked of a missionary holding a phone rarely gets an answer, and the texture is in their letters. What is missing is small — a name's spelling, who someone was, what became of them — and lives only in their memory.

A biography in their own words. Nothing invented.

Begin their archive

Everything else it keeps