At nineteen, Steve left for Hawaii and eventually moved through Guam, Saipan, and Majuro. The letters and journal pages from those two years do not read like polished missionary copy. They read like him: work, weather, money, family, blunt honesty, and sudden spiritual force.
Years later, when he explained how he got his own testimony, he pointed back to Guam. This chapter keeps that memory tied to the record from the time instead of telling it as a floating legend.
The excerpts below are lightly normalized for spelling and punctuation so they read cleanly. Click any scan to open the original handwriting or typed document. Fuller source-first versions live in Book Editions.
Mission photographs from 1976.First mission letter, December 15, 1975.
"I do love you and I love my work."
Paradise, Work, and Family
Honolulu - December 1975 to February 1976
His first mission letters already sound like Steve: grateful, practical, affectionate, and a little exasperated by whatever was in front of him.
The first letters keep sliding between testimony and logistics without any change in tone. He thanked his parents for coming to the airport, described paradise, asked for a checking account, and kept circling back to how much he loved them.
Excerpts
"Today is P day. Not fun day but work day: laundry, shopping, cleaning, wash car, etc."
"Ya know it's like paradise over here. Green everything."
"I never knew how much I loved ya till I'm gone for awhile."
"This mission is the happiest time of my life."
"I know now that Joseph Smith did not write the book at all. He translated it through the gift and power of God."
"I had to see if I was still standing on the ground."
"I do love you and I love my work."
Built from his first mission letter dated December 15, 1975, an early 1976 Hawaii letter to his parents, and the February 11, 1976 Honolulu letter. The full Honolulu letter also appears in Letters.
Guam Made It Real
Guam - March 1976 and later that year
He wrote about humidity, storms, home, the Lord, and the family he hoped to build someday as if they all belonged in the same paragraph.
Guam made the distance feel real. He missed the people he had just left, tried to size up the island fast, and still kept writing home as if the family conversation had simply stretched across the ocean.
"It was sure hard to go when ya know ya have that many friends that care enough about ya to stay up and see ya off at the airport."
"I think 'jungle' is the word."
"The air feel real heavy and it was a little funny to breathe the thick air."
"I really do love the Hawaiian people and I hope I soon feel the same way about the Chamorro people."
"Me, I'm going to have about 10-12 children when I get me a wife."
"That's what's so wonderful about the Lord's plan."
"Mom & Dad could ya send me another missionary journal as soon as possible. My pages are all written on."
Built from the March 1, 1976 Guam arrival letter and a later six-page Guam letter to his parents.
The Work Started Working on Him
Mission journal - December 1976 to February 1977
The journal pages are the closest thing to real-time interior evidence: the Spirit, self-command, teaching, and the feeling that something larger was speaking through him.
By late 1976 and early 1977, he was not only describing the work. He was trying to describe what it felt like in his body and mind when the work broke through.
Mission journal, December 22, 1976.Mission journal, December 29, 1976.Mission journal, January 18, 1977.Mission journal, February 3 and 4, 1977.Mission journal, February 21 and 22, 1977.
Journal lines
"The Spirit in this mission is overwhelming."
"I felt the Spirit in that home that I could not stop bearing my testimony for hours."
"I felt that I was really helping these people just by singing."
"I felt like I wasn't just another object this time."
"My reasoning took over my temper."
"It felt like some one talking over me."
Drawn from his late-1976 and early-1977 mission-journal pages. The clickable scans here are part of the same journal cluster used in the unabridged editions.
The Work Kept Moving
Saipan and Majuro - October 1976 to July 1977
The official paperwork pins the mission to real places. The letters written about him show what he was becoming to the people around him.
By October 1976 he was sent to Saipan. By March 1977 he was on to Majuro. The people who hosted him there did not describe a romantic figure. They described a happy, hardworking elder who put all he had into the calling.
Official transfer letter to Saipan, October 15, 1976.
Contemporaneous record
"Make your own arrangements to fly to Saipan."
"Learn the area and find, teach and baptize families. Get to know the Native people of the area."
"He is always in a good mood, smiling, joking, and working hard to spread the gospel to the people of Saipan."
"You can be grateful to have a son who puts all he has into his calling."
Built from the October 15, 1976 transfer letter to Saipan, the March 17, 1977 transfer letter to Majuro, Jean Nago's February 16, 1977 letter from Saipan, and the Fewkes family's July 7, 1977 letter from Majuro.
He Finally Knew for Himself
Guam, remembered later
When Steve later told the story of how belief stopped being borrowed, this is the moment he returned to.
Years later, he said he had gone out there still trying to fit into somebody else's certainty. The prayer at the cliff was where that stopped.
Later retelling
"Can God actually love me?"
"I just wanted to be myself and know the truth."
"The Mormon Church was true because it taught families can be together forever."
"I will not get up until I know."
"I heard a voice that said, 'You have always known it was true.'"
"Since that day I don't have to worry any more about scriptures or if I fit in because I know the truth."
From later mission and prayer retellings, including his 2015 missionary reflection and later talk material preserved in the unabridged editions.
