Salt Lake City, USA - A publishing company founded this year by the Mormon church is releasing its first volume.
The 500-page Joseph Smith Papers, released Monday, chronicles the church founder's journals between 1832 and 1839. It's the first in a series expected to run 30 volumes and the inaugural work of The Church Historian's Press.
Painstakingly transcribed from hundreds of fragile, handwritten pages, the book offers a look at Smith not just as a confident, charismatic church leader, but as a family man, who often prayed for guidance and strength.
The journals record letters, business transactions and religious revelations, some of which became church doctrine.