May 3, 2024

“I know how important it is for all of us to be able to read the words of Latter-day prophets,” says Susannah Jensen, a volunteer for the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation. “I loved the idea of being able to be a part of an organization that helped people do that.”

Susannah is a volunteer transcriber for the Wilford Woodruff Papers Project. She helps with the transcription of documents before they are edited and reviewed. She first heard about the Project through BYU’s student service program, Y-Serve. 

Susannah has been particularly impressed by the number of records that need to be transcribed. She shares, “Every time I look, there's even more work to do. It's amazing how many records there are in the collection, and it's so much fun to be able to make a dent in that.”

One thing Susannah has enjoyed about the Project is being able to read the words of President Woodruff. Through his journals, she has been able to learn more about his life and the history of the Church. Working on the Project is the highlight of her week. 

As a current BYU student, Susannah has loved reading the papers related to the administration of the Brigham Young Academy. She says, “As a BYU student, it's fascinating to learn more about everything that went into establishing the school that's such a big part of my life. It's also been really enlightening to learn more about all of the difficulties the Church faced during this time, and I can see the hand of the Lord in the work President Woodruff was doing.”

Susannah encourages anyone who is interested in the Project to get involved. For more information about helping the Research Team identify the 23,000 individuals included in the documents or work with the Editorial Team on transcribing documents in Turkish, Maori, Swedish, and German, please visit https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/volunteer.