A History of the Church in Western Japan

by Andrew Hall

Chapter 2: The Reestablishment of the Japanese Mission, 1945-1955

During the 1945-1948 period, Church members in the American military stationed in Japan helped to regroup the Japanese members, especially in Tokyo.  They were also instrumental in a key conversion which helped to lay the groundwork for the Church in post-war Japan.  This was the conversion of the Sato family in 1945-46, the first people to be baptized in Japan after the war.  Since Sato Tatsui is such a key figure in the history of the Church in Japan, I will talk about his life in detail.  The information below is largely taken from the articles about him in the Oct.1996 Seito no Michi.

Sato Tatsui was born in Narumi, a village just south of Nagoya (today in Nagoya-shi Midori-ku), in 1899, and was baptized in the Methodist Church at age 18.  He earned a degree in chemistry at the prestigious Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai in 1925, and also became proficient in English while studying there.  Between 1925 and 1938 he taught chemistry in a girls high school, was a metallurgy researcher at Tohoku University, and was the manager of a mine.  (One source says he was forced to resign as a teacher in 1935 because he was a Christian, but the 1996 Seito no Michi articles did not mention that.)   Metallurgy was becoming increasingly important to the Japanese government because of the widening war in East Asia.  At the request Japanese government he became the Research Department Chief of the Kawasaki factory in Yokohama in 1938.  While there the Satos were blessed with a son and a daughter.  The family suffered through the bombings and food shortages that came with the last years of the war.  The Satos’ daughter Atsuko died of dysentery and malnutrition in Aug. 1945, on the last day of the war, because they were not able to find any medicine.  The Satos then moved to back to Narumi where the food situation was better.  There they lived by making and selling miso and soy sauce.  Narumi is on the old Tokaido road, the main route from Kyoto to Tokyo.  It was also not far from the Okazaki Military base, where a number of American soldiers were based.  Since he was proficient in English, Mr. Sato served as a translator between the soldiers and local merchants.  In that capacity he met Raymond Hanks and Mel Arnold, two LDS servicemen, in November 1945, and was impressed with their demeanor.  On November 22nd while in the “Ichi Roku” clothing store he saw the two, along with Reed Davis, another member, and invited them in for a cup of tea.  They politely refused the tea, and briefly explained about the Word of Wisdom, which impressed him.  He invited the three to visit his home, which they did the next week.  They lent him a Book of Mormon, and he promised to read it.  Over the next few months the soldiers visited Tatsui and his wife Chiyo about twice a week to discuss the gospel.  Other members also participated, including C. Elliot Richards, a Mormon chaplain. One anonymous friend would drop off a loaf of bread from his truck every time he rode by, which went a long way toward keeping the family fed in those lean times.   In March the Okazaki base was closed, and contact with his military friends became difficult for a while.  By this time, however, the Satos were holding Sunday School services at their house, with at least 20 to 30 people attending each week, mostly children.  The future apostle Boyd K. Packer, who was in the Army Air Corp, was stationed at the Itami Airport (near Amagasaki) at the time.  He also participated in the lessons, and became very close to the Satos.  They were baptized on July 7th, 1946, at the Kansai Gakuin Daigaku pool (in Nishinomiya, not far from the present Nishinomiya church), which had been largely destroyed by bombs.  The baptism took place after a servicemen’s conference in Osaka attended by 150 LDS servicemen and several Japanese. Brother Richards baptized Tatsui and Brother Packer baptized Chiyo. Brother Sato would become a key translator for the Church, leading the effort to retranslate the Book of Mormon, translate the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, and eventually translate the temple ceremonies, among many other things.  Sister Sato Chiyo passed away in 1959.  In 1966 Brother Sato moved to Utah, where he taught at BYU for a while and worked on Japanese family history at the Genealogical Society.  In Salt Lake he met and married Sister Hiranishi Tomiko.  Sister Michiko Matsumori, our Mission Mother in 1989-1992, is Sato Tomiko’s daughter and Brother Sato’s step-daughter.  The Satos served as temple missionaries after the Tokyo Temple opened in 1980.  Then they returned to Salt Lake City.  His last translation, “The Blessings of Temple Marriage” was published in 1991.  Brother Sato died in Salt Lake City in 1996.

The Mission was reopened on March 6th, 1948, when President Edward Clissold arrived in Tokyo.  President Clissold had previously presided over the Central Pacific Mission, the mission to the Japanese in Hawaii.  In 1945-46 he was a member of General MacArthur’s staff in Tokyo, where he was instrumental in reestablishing contact with the Japanese members.  On June 26th the first five missionaries arrived.  They were Harrison T. Price, Raymond C. Price, Paul C. Andrus, Koji Okauchi, and Wayne McDanial.  All five had were veterans of World War II, and all had begun their missionary work and language study in Hawaii for a time before going to Japan. 

Narumi was one of the first places where missionaries were sent outside of Tokyo.  In Aug. 1948 President Clissold visited the Satos’ Sunday School.  On the Aug. 26th  Brother Takagi Tomigoro, a long time member, and Elders Andrus and Price visited Narumi, and with the Satos’ help found an place for missionaries to live.  In Oct. 1948 Elders H. Ted Price and Kojin Goya arrived in Narumi as the first missionaries stationed outside of Tokyo, and the first in Western Japan in the post-war period.  Sister Yanagita Toshiko, Brother Takagi’s daughter, was baptized in Aug.1949.  (She, along with her husband, would be pillars of the Nagoya church for years to come, and she would serve as the Mission Relief Society President for much of the 1960s, the first Japanese woman to hold that position.  She was the translator of the hymnal the church used around 1960-1989, a revision and enlargement of the one her father and Elder Ivins translated in 1915.  They also later served as temple missionaries in Taiwan.  Today the Yanagitas live in Yokohama.) The members, including the Yanagita family, continued to meet at Brother Sato’s house in Naurmi until he moved to Tokyo in Jan.1950, so Brother Sato could serve as head of the Church translating committee.  A branch in Nagoya city proper, in addition to the one in Narumi, was opened in Jan.1950.  The branch met in several different places in the early years, including member homes, pre-schools, schools, and other rented buildings  The Narumi Branch was merged into the Nagoya Branch in March1956.

I don’t know if there was any contact between the American servicemen members and the members of the former Osaka Branch during 1945-1948.  Missionary work was reopened in Kansai on November 10th 1948, when President Clissold visited Osaka and met with Brothers Katsura, Hisata, and Oohashi, members baptized before the mission closed in 1924.  Contact was also made with Brother Teranishi.  The members in Kansai received a variety of help from Brother Paul Merrill, an American member serving in the Army and stationed in Kobe.  In Jan. 1949 Elders Murray L. Nichols and Yoshii Kiyoshi (a Japanese-American) were sent Osaka, where they opened the Osaka Branch.  On February 13th they held the first Sunday School meeting at the Osaka Public Hall (Kookaidoo), with about 30 in attendance.  Another member from before the war was Sister Nagao, who returned to Osaka after living in Manchuria since at least 1931.  (I’m not sure if she lived in Osaka before that or not).  She said of that time, “When I heard that the Japan Mission was to be reopened and the Osaka Branch established, it was like a large light shined in my heart, and with a sudden cheerful feeling I began to attended the Sunday School.”  The building they met in was very bare, and too big for their needs, so the Branch moved to the Yodogawa Girls High School near the Hankyu Juso (Juusoo) station, where it held its first Sunday School on May 8th, 1949.  Brothers Katsura, Murakami, and Hisata found the spot, and through the good offices of the Principal, Mr. Hirata, they were able to rent it for Saturday MIA activities and Sunday meetings for free.  The name of the unit was changed to the Juso Branch.  Juso (written with the characters for “thirteen”) is a neighborhood in Osaka City, Yodogawa-ku, north of the Yodo River, in what would later be the Okamachi Branch’s area. The Branch had a very good relationship with the school officials, thereby giving the unit a much more stable existence than almost any other unit in Japan at the time.  Many units in Japan moved around to a variety of community halls and conference centers during the late 40s and 50s, until they were able to buy their own property.  Several students from Yodogawa High School attended the missionary English classes, and became members of the church.  Also in May Sisters Ruth Needham and Bessie Okimoto arrived in Osaka, becoming the first post-war sister missionaries serving in Western Japan. Elder H. Ted Price was also involved in the early work in the Branch.  In 1956 the branch moved to a site in Toyonaka-shi near the Hankyu Okamachi station, and was renamed the Okamachi Branch.

In June1949 Elder Matthew Cowley came to Japan, and visited several of the branches.  While in Nagoya he bestowed the Melchizedek Priesthood on Brother Sato.  At a special meeting dedicating the newly rennovated mission home in Tokyo Elder Cowley made his famous prophesy promising that in the future many Church buildings and even temples would be built in Japan.

In Aug.1949 the Abeno Branch was divided off from the Juso Branch, forming the second branch in Osaka, and the first south of the Yodo River.  A key early member was Brother Aki Hiroshi, who was baptized in Dec.1949.  In 1952, when Brother Aki had returned for a visit to his family home in Tokushima, the Branch President and President Mauss visited him and invited him to serve a mission.  Upon being called he was immediately set apart and sent off to his first area, with little more than the clothes on his back.  He was among the first Japanese missionaries, and the first to come from western Japan.  Brother Matsumoto from Abeno was also called on a mission in 1952.

In Aug. 1949 Vinal Mauss became the second Mission President in post-war Japan.  He had served as a missionary in Japan during the last years of the pre-war mission.  He improved the language training, and continued the expansion in proselytizing areas.  In 1951 he began calling Japanese elders, including Brothers Aki and Matsumoto from Abeno, and Brother Tanaka from Juso, all in 1952. The Japanese missionaries who served in the 1950s were almost completely financially supported by donations from American servicemen stationed in the Far East.  Servicemen were encouraged to donate a dollar a month to the missionary fund.

The Hokuriku region was opened to missionary work in Aug.1949, when President Clissold visited Komatsu (Ishikawa-ken), and then sent Elders Okabe and Akau to open a branch there.  Komatsu, a medium sized city, was opened up so early because relatives of the Nojima family, who had recently been baptized in Tokyo, lived there.  The first baptism in Komatsu was Watanabe Kan in April1950.  Brother Watanabe in 1970 would be called Mission President to the Japan West (Fukuoka) Mission, the first native Japanese mission president.   In 1950 branches were also established in Kanazawa and Daishooji (Kaga-shi), both in Ishikawa-ken.  In Jan.1953 the Daishooji Branch was merged into the Komatsu Branch.

In Feb. 1950 Sisters Sarah Pule and Bessie Okimoto were sent to the village of Hirao (Yamaguchi-ken), just south of Yanai.  The reason such a small town was opened up to the work was because of a request from a Brother Takeuchi in Hawaii.  Brother Takeuchi was born in Hirao, and he emigrated to Hawaii to find work in 1904 at the age of 15.  He started out as a sugar cane plantation worker, and eventually built up a very successful construction company.  He was baptized in 1936, and served in the church faithfully until his death in 1989.  His lifelong dream was to establish a church in his home town, and he not only donated money to that cause, but he and his wife came to Japan in 1969 as building missionaries to help build the Yanai chapel.  A second branch was established in Yanai soon after the sisters arrived in 1950, and in Feb.1954 the two units were combined into the Yanai Branch.

In March 1950 a branch was opened in Kyoto, and in June Katayama Tomio, the area’s first convert, was baptized.  He would serve through much of the 1960s as the Kyoto Branch President.

Hiroshima was opened on March 7th, 1950 by Elders Kojin Goya and William Oppie.  While searching for lodgings, Elder Goya, a nisei from Hawaii, happened upon an old acquaintance who introduced them to a family with whom they could stay for a while.  Two or three days later, a woman named Kamotani visited them and told them she had dreamed that two angels had come to visit her.  She invited them to live in a room in her house.  In Aug.1950 Mrs. Kamotani and her children were baptized.  

In Nov.1950 Elder H. Ted Price went to Fukuoka to open missionary work there.  Through miraculous turn of events he was able to secure lodging in Fukuda Masako (Akiko?)’s home.  She was a leading local figure, a graduate of the Kyushu Imperial University medical school, and a Diet member for the Socialist Party in the House of Councilors.  (Ted Price returned to Japan often after his mission as part of his job as district director of the U.S. Department of Justice Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Far East.  He served as Mission President’s Counselor in the late 50s and early 60s, President of the Tokyo South Mission in 1976-1979, and JMTC President in 1992.) Later that month Elders Nichols and Swenson were sent to serve in Fukuoka.  They began holding meetings at the Sumiyoshi Fujin Kaikan, near the Hakata station.  A key early convert was Brother Yoshizawa, who was baptized in 1953.  He met Elder Price in Jan.1950 just after the missionary arrived in Fukuoka, bought a Book of Mormon from him, and began attending meetings.  His wife Midori was baptized a month after him.  He became the first Melchizedek Priesthood holder from Kyushu in Sept.1957, and later served as Branch President and Stake President in Fukuoka, and President of the Okayama Mission.

In Oct.1950 President Mauss first organized the mission into “regions” and districts.  Ted Price was put in charge of the “Southern Region”, which covered all of Western Japan.  It included the Aichi District (Nagoya and Narumi), the Ishikawa District (Komatsu and Kanazawa), the Osaka District (Juso, Abeno, and Kyoto), and the Hiroshima District (Hiroshima, Yanai, and Hirao).  In Feb.1952 the “region” system was abandoned, and by Jan.1953 the branches in  Western Japan were reorganized into the Minami Chuo (Nagoya and Hokuriku to Osaka) and Minami (Hiroshima to Fukuoka) Districts. 

In Oct.1953 President Mauss was released, and Hilton A. Robertson took his place.  This was Hilton and Hazel Robertson’s third stint as Mission President of a Japanese mission, and fourth overall.  Robertson was the last President in Japan when the mission was closed in 1924.  Then he was the first president of the Japanese-Central Pacific Mission in Hawaii from 1937 to 1940.  In 1949 he was called to open the Chinese Mission in Hong Kong.  In 1951 the Chinese Mission was closed because of the tense political situation in Hong Kong.  When Robertson was set apart in 1953 he was given authority not only over Japan, but throughout East Asia, including the Chinese members in Hong Kong, and American servicemen in Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Guam.  Robertson was already 62 years old at this point, and both he and his wife were in frail health.  He was somewhat overwhelmed by his responsibilities, and was not able to pay much attention to improving the skills and morale of the missionaries.  As a result the pace of growth in Japan slowed down during his Presidency. 

Elder Harold B. Lee visited Japan in Aug.1954.  He visited many of the branches, including attending the Minami Chuo District Meeting in the Osaka Nakanoshima Chuo Kokaido on August 29th.  Also in 1954 the Church purchased a piece of land in Hiroshima, the first piece of land acquired by the church in Western Japan.

In May 1955 the Fukuoka Branch was suddenly closed, without any explanation to the members.  There had not been much success in Fukuoka, and because of some personal problems the missionary lodgings and meeting place were in danger of being lost.  President Robertson sent the Minami District President, Elder Takeuchi, to close the branch and take the missionaries stationed there to Okayama, where missionary efforts began the next month.  The members, however, continued to meet together without the missionaries.  In June 26th Brother Kawasaki, an Elder who moved to Fukuoka from Tokyo, was made the Group Leader, and Brother Yoshizawa, who was recently made a Priest, was made his assistant.  The Branch was reopened by President Andrus in Dec.1955.

Missionary work in Okayama began on June 1st, 1955, when Elders Toyne and Moffit (not sure of the spelling of either) were transferred into the area.  There were no members in Okayama at the time, a situation which differed from most of the other openings of cities around that time, which happened when members or self-referring investigators contacted the mission home and asked for missionaries to come to the area.  President Robertson instructed the Elders to “work for four months, after which we’ll decide whether to continue.”  The missionaries received a good impression of the city, and within a few months had both an adult and children’s Sunday schools which were well attended.  In December 1956, a year and a half after opening the area, they had their first baptisms, two sisters.

In July 1955 the Church responded to President Robertson’s requests to lighten his load by dividing the mission.  Joseph Fielding Smith was sent to Japan to divide the mission into the Northern Far East Mission, which included Japan, Okinawa, and Korea, and the Southern Far East Mission, which covered Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Guam.  The end of the war in Korea and opportunities in other parts of East Asia made this a turning point in the work in the region.  H. Grant Heaton was called as the first president of the Southern Far East Mission, and directed the opening of the work in Taiwan and the Phillipines.  In the new Northern Far East Mission, President Smith visited Korea and Okinawa and dedicated those lands for missionary work on August 2nd and 14th.

Paul Andrus, one of the first five missionaries in the reopened Japanese  Mission in 1949, became the Mission President in December 1955 at the age of 31.

                                Mission statistics

                   Year     Missionaries    Baptisms
                   1948     5                      22
                   1949     55                   124
                   1950     100                 189
                   1951     80                   214
                   1952     75                   162
                   1953     75                   205
                   1954     74                   191 (includes all of East Asia)
                   1955     80                   136
                   1956     89                   181 (includes Korea and Okinawa)
                   1957     98                   638
                   1958     105                 760
                   1959     107                 631
                   1960     103                 927
                   1961     147                 1322

Most of the information in this chapter comes from “Nihon Matsu Jitsu Seito Shi: 1950-1980 Nen” (History of the LDS Church in Japan, 1950-1980), by William MacIntyre and Takagi Shinji (formerly a Bishop in Kobe), Beehive Press, 1996,  “From the East: The History of the Latter Day Saints in Asia, 1851-1996” by R. Lanier Britsch, Deseret Book, 1998, and issues of the Japanese-language Church magazine Seito no Michi.  Thanks also to President Paul Andrus for serveral corrections.