The 23 years that the then-Elder Gordon B. Hinckley served as an 
Assistant to the Twelve and in the Quorum of the Twelve were filled with 
great efforts. Now those efforts are showing fruition.

During one of his assignments to Japan on Nov. 20, 1962, he spoke to 
missionaries in the Fukuoka Branch. Afterwards, he invited the lone 
Japanese missionary, Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi, to speak. Elder Kikuchi 
asked to speak in Japanese, but as he began, spoke fluently in English. 
Most in the room wept, including Elder Hinckley. In 1970 when the Tokyo 
Stake was created by Elder Ezra Taft Benson, accompanied by Elder 
Hinckley, the youngest member of the stake presidency was Yoshihiko 
Kikuchi, then 29. In 1975 when President Spencer W. Kimball announced a 
temple for Tokyo, the young Japanese leader was in the congregation. "The 
whole congregation clapped their hands for joy," he said. "They didn't 
know how else to express their joy."

In 1977, Elder Kikuchi was called to the First Quorum of the Seventy. 
(From Go Forward with Faith, pp. 251, 312, 343, 375.) And on June 11, 
2000, President Hinckley returned to Fukuoka and dedicated Japan's second 
temple, where 38 years earlier in a fledgling branch, a young Japanese 
missionary had spoken fluently in English for the first time.

© 2000 Deseret News Publishing Co.