This collection contains two diaries kept by Charles H. Bridges, Jr. during his Latter-day Saints' mission in Samoa, a journal with Bridges' Samoan language notes and studies, an 1892 Deseret News article discussing Bridges' work in Samoa, and a family group sheet with Bridges family's genealogical information.

The diaries span the period of 1893 to 1894 and contain detailed daily entries about Bridges' missionary labors. His diaries discuss missionary work, local congregations, opposition to the LDS Church in Samoa, local customs and social life, the political conflicts that occurred in Samoa during this period, and other similar topics. Each daily entry also lists the town or city Bridges was then laboring in. His diaries also contain a dated list showing which towns and islands Bridges visited over the course of each year, a list of all letters received, a financial record of expenses, a record of baptisms performed, and the 1893 diary (Fd 1) contains a photograph of Bridges. The 1893-1894 diary (Fd 2) contains a month of entries while Bridges was in Dingle shortly after his return from Samoa. These two diaries were numbered Journals 4 and 5 by Bridges, the location of Journals 1-3 is currently unknown.

The journal with the Samoan language notes concerns Bridges' study of the Samoan language and contains speeches, prayers, and various notes in Samoan. The Deseret News article discusses the October 1892 travels of Bridges and island's Latter-day Saints' conference meeting where Bridges spoke. The family group record shows birth, death, and marriage dates of Bridges and his wife and children.

There is also a collection of incoming and outgoing correspondence associated with the Charles H. Bridges, Jr. missionary diaries. One group of letters is from Bridges’ fellow missionaries in Samoa, including George E. Browning, Hatten Carpenter, George M. McCune, Joseph H. Merrill, C.W. Poole, R.M. Stevens, C.R. Thomason, Adelbert Twitchell, and Frank Van Colt. This correspondence includes words of encouragement, as well as reports of progress in the Samoan Mission. While in Samoa, Bridges also received a number of letters from family and friends, the majority of which came from his wife, Mary Ellen. These letters provided Bridges with updates about life in his hometown of Dingle, Idaho, like one letter from his father-in-law, Sampson Nate, which announces the birth of Bridges’ son. Another includes a lock of hair, probably clipped from one of his children.

In these papers is also a series of outgoing correspondence from Bridges while he was serving as a missionary in Samoa. The majority of these letters is addressed to Mary Ellen and offers an unusually personal insight into Bridges’ feelings and experiences while living overseas. There is also a letter to the 19th Quorum of the Seventy that details the progress of the Samoan Mission after missionaries had been on the island for three and a half years.