The FP vault is like the True Cross. If every piece of the tc that purports to be real actually were real, it would be about 100,0000 feet tall. If the FP vault holds everything that people whisper it holds, I’m pretty sure that the entire state of Utah is hollow inside.

It’s not?

Although there is some mystery about what has become of John Taylor’s many journals, their whereabouts is not completely unknown. They reside in the custody of the Taylor family.

In 1980, while serving as president of the Stevenson Family Association (descendants of Edward Stevenson), the family collected his 74 Journals. We donated them to the Church Historian’s Office with the provision that they would be available to family members and scholars for research.

At that time the Woodruff Family Association also donated his many journals. The Church Historian commented that with the Edward Stevenson and Wilford Woodruff journals, the Church had all the journals of 19th century General Authorities except John Taylor’s journals.

At the time, my father was well acquainted with Samuel W. Taylor (author historian), Raymond Taylor (author) and Henry D. Taylor (First Quorum of Seventy), all of Provo, Utah. He asked them if they would also donate the journals of their grandfather, John Taylor.

They said that the family would consider it but at the time they were reluctant to do so. There were more than 100. Sam Taylor used them to write his biography of John Taylor, which he published with MacMillian Publishing Co. in 1976 as THE KINGDOM OR NOTHING: THE LIFE OF JOHN TAYLOR, MILITANT MORMON and was still working on the THE JOHN TAYLOR PAPERS, A 2 volume work published by the Taylor Trust in 1984.

When we saw the journals, they were being used by Sam Taylor in his research. Henry died in 1987, and I presume that Sam either had them in his possession or had access to them until the time of his death in 1997, shortly before his biography was republished by Signature Books under the title of THE LAST PIONEER (1999).

I look at my journals, which I wrote about 400 pages on my mission and probably about 200 since (15 years later). At times re-reading my journal I find some of it embarrassing, and down right silly now but some day my family may gain from what I consider childish immaturity.

So to me it is a sacred document which will help my descendants see me as something more than an obscure name on some census records as so many of my ancestors are.

I agree with kevinf about the need to NOT record and preserve many things I have done and do in my callings.

Specifically, I have shredded any notes that I had in my planner from when I was bishop that discussed anything personal about others, and only kept general notes about talks I have heard, or activities and the like. I seem to recall that any notes that I had from any disciplinary councils I may or may not have been involved in were to be destroyed once action was final, and the required reports sent to SLC. Any councils that resulted in no action or when informal discipline had been completed, were also to be destroyed. There were some references in the Handbook regarding that, as I recall.

I’m amazed sometimes at what people will post in their blogs online for all to see, and even our family blog is now restricted access as some folks put way too much personal information out there that should not be public.

I wonder how historians will look at the Bloggernacle specifically some 50 years from now? I can only speculate about how much material there will be to sift through, and add to that the server logs recording IP addresses, email accounts, etc, that are not publicly displayed, and the volume of raw information is staggering.

More psychoanalyticly, I think personal worries about what we write in our journals betray a perfection complex that isn’t healthy or consistent with Mormon revelations.

I have destroyed journals that I wrote during my mission and my new personal writings are in code. Hehehe. Of course, there was nothing really important written there. In the case of General Authorities, I hope they keep journals in good detail and hopefully scholars in the future have access to them.