was established in Japan in 1901 when the church's first missionaries arrived on August 12. Among them was Heber J. Grant, who was then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve and later became the church's 7th president. Horace S. Ensign, Louis A. Kelsch, and Alma O. Taylor accompanied Grant. The LDS Church's first baptism in Japan was on March 8, 1902, when Grant baptized Hajime Nakazawa, a former Kannushi (Shinto priest). The Book of Mormon was translated three times. The first translation, which took over six years, was completed by Taylor in 1909. It was then recommended that the Book of Mormon be translated into bunshō, a more elegant literary style, which was done by Chōkō Ikuta in 1909, shortly before it was published and distributed. The third translation in 1957 was done by Tatsui Sato. In 1995, the Book of Mormon was translated again into a more colloquial style.
Missionary work from the opening of the Japan Mission through 1924 was challenging due to language barriers and cultural differences, as well as the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and the Immigration Act of 1924. Few baptisms were performed during this time period. Due to these difficulties, the Japan Mission was closed from 1924 to 1945, until after the end of World War II. During the twenty years missionary work was halted in Japan, the work was moved to Hawaii to reach Japanese people living there. A small number of Latter-day Saints in Japan met together privately in their homes from 1924 to 1945, under the leadership of Fujiya Nara and later Fujiwara Takeo.
The mission was reopened in 1948 with Edward L. Clissold as president. Missionary work flourished after 1948 with the number of baptisms increasing, requiring new missions to be opened. The LDS Church decided to open the Mormon Pavilion during the Expo '70 in Osaka. After the Expo, baptisms doubled from 1969 to 1970. Two days after the Expo finished, the church's first stake in Japan was established in Tokyo in 1970. The Tokyo Japan Temple, the first temple in Japan and in Asia, was dedicated in 1980.
As of 2025, the LDS Church reported 131,776 members in 230 congregations in Japan, making it the second largest body of LDS Church members in Asia behind the Philippines.
History
1901–1924: Establishment of the Japan Mission Missionary efforts Walter M. Gibson, sent by Brigham Young, attempted to send missionaries to the Pacific in 1861, but stopped his mission in Hawaii. He wrote a book of strict instructions for a morally and physically clean life that the Hawaiian people should follow, called the "Sanitary Instructions". He was excommunicated from the church in 1864 for selling church offices to islanders and using the money to buy large amounts of land on Lanai. In 1895, the Japanese Consul in San Francisco asked Abraham H. Cannon if there were plans to open up a mission in Japan. However, he died before the mission could be established. Then in 1901, the church's First Presidency announced the opening of the Japan Mission.
Heber J. Grant, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and later the church's seventh president, was assigned to establish the first LDS Church mission in Asia, headquartered in Tokyo.; The Panic of 1893 caused him to go into a lot of debt, so at the time, he was in serious financial distress. The First Presidency allowed him one year to get out of debt, which he did in the allotted time.
Grant handpicked the first three missionaries to serve with him in Japan: Horace S. Ensign, Louis A. Kelsch, and Alma O. Taylor. They became known as the "Japanese Quartet". They arrived in Japan on August 12, 1901. Despite their arrival, the missionaries did not yet have permission from the government to proselyte, so they spent their time learning the language. After lobbying with the chief of police, the missionaries received permission to preach in early October. The missionaries, particularly Grant, had great difficulties learning the language. The missionaries met Takahashi Gorō, who had previously published a defense of the Mormons in the periodical The Sun. Takahashi spoke good English and had a knowledge of other languages. He decided to help Grant by writing a book that would introduce the mission of the Latter-day Saints to the Japanese people. Nakazawa Hajime became the first baptized member in Japan. Nakazawa soon began asking Grant for money to start a new business, and because the LDS Church is prohibited from loaning members money to start businesses, Grant refused. Nakazawa was caught robbing the mission house and was excommunicated from the church and arrested. After the arrest of Nakazawa, Takahashi no longer supported the missionaries, describing Grant as cruel and "cold-blooded" for refusing to pay Nakazawa.
From 1902 to 1924, eighty-eight missionaries proselyted in twenty-nine locations, laboring largely in Tokyo, Sapporo, and Osaka, performing 166 baptisms. However, on August 7, 1924, Grant, then president of the church, closed the mission to await a more favorable time, due to the low number of baptisms.;
Several issues contributed to the low number of baptisms. Ongoing problems in the mission included the difficulty of the language, as well as cultural differences. Also, the small number of missionaries and their extended service caused fatigue among them and hardships for their loved ones. There were also external problems: the earthquake in Tokyo in 1923 stalled proselytizing, the United States' Immigration Act of 1924 caused racial tensions between Japan and the United States. Finally, the general sense of defeatism of the missionaries in Japan and Church leaders in Salt Lake City influenced the decision to close the mission in Japan.; Even though they did not baptize many members, they translated the Book of Mormon into Japanese. They also wrote a Japanese hymnbook, a history of the Church, a biography of Joseph Smith, and other literature. Missionaries, as well as the Church in general, gained experience that would make the reestablishment of the mission in 1948 more successful.
First Japanese church members The first baptized Japanese member was Hajime Nakazawa, a former Shinto priest. He was baptized on March 8, 1902, on the shore of Omori in Tokyo Bay. Although he was the first baptized member, he was not the first active member of the LDS Church. After he was baptized, he and his wife asked the missionaries for a significant amount of money. The missionaries refused and he was later caught attempting to rob the missionaries' home. He was then excommunicated and subsequently arrested.
One of the most prominent first Japanese church members was Tomizo Katsunuma, a veterinarian and immigration inspector in Honolulu, honored as the "Father of Immigrants". He is notable as one of the first members of LDS Church with Japanese ancestry. He moved to the United States during the emigration fever. He had many contacts with LDS Church members in Logan, Utah, which influenced his decision to get baptized on August 8, 1895. After his death, the headline of the obituary read "Dr. Katsunuma, first Japanese Mormon, dies".
Tokujiro Sato was another one of the church's first Japanese converts. Tokujiro immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. Tukujiro supposedly joined the church in 1892, though because of the lack of records, it is unclear when he was baptized or whether he was baptized at all. He was listed in membership records in the Waipio Branch, but there is no baptism record. However, the baptisms of his children were recorded and, despite the lack of records, Taokujiro attended the LDS Church throughout his life.
Portrayal of the church in Japan Other Christian churches often preached against the LDS Church, criticizing its doctrines, yet admitting the strange propensity it seemed to have in attracting followers. The doctrine of the church, and polygamy in particular, was seen as a threat to Japanese culture and the Meiji society's ideals of civilization. Even though the Japanese people heard about the church through the Iwakura Mission to the United States in 1872, the earliest official printed introduction of the Japanese people to the LDS Church was likely the 1879 Japanese translation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days. Jean Passepartout, a character in the book, heard a lecture on Mormonism and polygamy which disturbed him. Magazine articles helped to spread the knowledge of the church in Japan, however, the articles focused on polygamy and its dangers to women and society in an increasingly Westernizing country. Some Japanese saw the polygamous practices of Latter-day Saints as a direct offense to the attempts to eliminate laws and traditions surrounding concubines. When the church missionaries taught about church's doctrine to the Japanese, it was often necessary to counter the assumptions the Japanese people had about the church and polygamy. The Japanese translation of the book A Brief History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints included an extra chapter on polygamy in order to provide some clarification that the LDS Church no longer practiced it.
Translation of the Book of Mormon
The translation of the Book of Mormon began in 1904 and went through 1909, taking almost six years. The elders had no working knowledge of Japanese and the reputation of the LDS Church made it difficult for them to find native speakers who were willing to help them with the language. Mission president Horace S. Ensign requested that each missionary use his spare time translating the Book of Mormon into Japanese. Seven months later, the compiled translation was assigned to Alma O. Taylor who worked full-time to complete it. Taylor finished the translation in 1906, after working 21 months. The next 18 months were used to edit, re-read, and correct the Book of Mormon.
Noguchi Zenshirō, a delegate to the World's Parliament of Religions, and Susuzki Genta recommended to Taylor that the style of the Book of Mormon should be changed from the colloquial genbun'itchi style to bunshō, a more elegant written style historically used in literature, records, and official documents. Chōkō Ikuta changed the style of the translation to bunshō and finished in May 1909. Final corrections were made July 24, 1909. The first five thousand copies were released October 11, 1909, with special editions made for monarchs and government leaders. The task of translating the Book of Mormon into Japanese was taken with great care. Taylor read his translations about fourteen times, while critics read the translation seven times. They recruited help from some of the best Japanese authors of the time such as Tsubouchi Shōyō and Hōmei Iwano.
A second translation of the Book of Mormon was published in 1957. The translation was made by Tatsui Sato, who belonged to the first baptized Japanese family after the closure of the mission in 1924. The most recent translation of the Book of Mormon was published in 1995 in a colloquial style. This style became more widely used after World War II.
1924–1945: Closed Japan Mission