Posted by:
John Smithson
(
)
Date: December 17, 2012 03:03PM
An interesting thread on retention rates of Japan missionaries closed before I had a chance to comment. In particular, someone noted that Japan will soon be down to 5 or 6 missions, even though at its peak it had 10. Even for an ex-member, something about that makes me sad.
My wife is Japanese, and we lived in Japan for several years. (I met her many years after my mission.) It does seem like the Mormon Church in Japan is dying. And missionaries in Japan do seem to fall away more than others. But it is hard to tell.
Anybody else from the Goro Yamada years in Fukuoka? In the two years I was there, we had six Elders sent home for having sex. In the three years of Arthur Nishimoto as Mission President before that, no one got sent home. The mission went from laid back to strict as hell.
Many Elders I knew left the Church fairly quickly after returning. One, sadly, who was gay took his own life a few years after. One other Elder I knew is a Stake President now. He's good with people, not at all cocky, and in my mind is the ideal Mormon that seems so rare in the Church.
For me, this temple building craze, in Japan and elsewhere, seems crazy. Why a temple in Fukuoka? To me, it just demeans the temple experience. Might as well make every stakehouse a temple.