Translation of the Standard Works
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Regarding the publishing of Tatsui Sato's new translation of the Book of Mormon and his translation of the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, because of the importance of this accomplishment, I hope you don't mind if I give you some more information.

In 1948 President Clissold assigned Brother Sato to retranslate the Book of Mormon and to translate for the first time the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. In my journal under date of April 18, 1956, I noted that Tatsui Sato had completed these translations after eight years of diligent labor.

Learning from my experience on the translation committee during my first mission I determined on a plan to greatly expedite the publishing.

The first thing Brother Sato translated in 1948 were the sacrament prayers which did not take him long. President Clissold and I and Sister Fujiwara then reviewed the translations with Brother Sato and agreed on the final translation.

President Clissold then sent the manuscriipts to the First Presidency for their approval. The First Presidency turned the manuscripts over to former missionaries in Japan from the old days for their opinion.

These old timers recommended some changes whereupon the First Presidency sent the manuscripts back to President Clissold.

Our committee in Tokyo then reviewed the suggested changes and agreed on a translation. President Clissold then sent the manuscripts to the First Presidency and the whole process repeated itself.

This went on endlessly and it took about two years just to get approval from the First Presidency to publish the sacrament prayers!

I was determined not to get caught in that trap again so I wrote to the First Presidency asking them to grant me the permission to form a committee in Tokyo to review and give final approval of Brother Sato's translations.

The First Presidency granted me that permission and I formed a translation review committee with myself as chairman and with Tatsui Sato, Tomigoro Takagi, Elder Ben Oniki, and Elder Don Lundberg as committee members.

Beginning on June 4, 1956, this committee met almost every week day for three or four hours reviewing and discussing the translations and on July 7, 1956, we completed our work on the Book of Mormon.

We went through it from beginning to end twice. I then wrote to the First Presidency advising them we had finished our work and requested permission to proceed with the publishing of the Book of Mormon immediately.

Even then it took until October 27th before we received a letter from the First Presidency granting us permission to publish 10,000 copies of the Book of Mormon and with a check to pay the publisher enclosed.

Even though we had been negotiating with the Sanseido Publishing Company since early in the year, because of the long delay in getting approval and the money from the First Presidency, they could not schedule us for publishing until the spring of 1957.

The first copies of Tatsui Sato's new translation of the Book of Mormon were delivered to mission headquarters on May 30, 1957, and the first copies of the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price were delivered on December 20, 1957.


Warm aloha, Paul C. Andrus