I've read a lot of posts about past missionary work in Japan and all the mistakes that were made there but I'm curious what it is like today. Did they close or open any missions there in the last year? Are the Japanese on to Mormonism yet? Is most of the work in reactivation or are there baptisms? Who has more luck, elders or sisters? Is it a pretty safe place to serve a mission or not? What is the worst part of being a missionary in Japan, would you say?

Just curious - I know someone who served a mission in Japan decades ago and I wondered if anyone knows the recent info. Talking to people about their missions often gives you an opportunity to slip in gems about what growth in the church is really like nowadays.

Didn't serve a mission, but I did spend a lot of my free time with the missionaries (talking to investigators, planning activities, teaching lessons, etc.) when I lived in Kyoto for a year. I heard the sisters had better luck with investigators, but that (surprise!) retention rates in Japan are awful.

Japan is, for the most part, a pretty safe country. As a woman, I could walk around by myself at 2 in the morning and feel perfectly at ease. The missionaries I hung around seemed to feel safe as well. The hardest part, I would say, is probably the culture shock, and the psychological isolation that many foreigners experience while living there. Combined with the tough experience of serving a mission, I can only imagine what kind of hell that must be like for some missionaries.

Most of the missionaries I met seemed well-adjusted, but there was one young man who had a really tough time of it. He shouldn't have been sent abroad in the first place, IMO, but I guess the leadership felt "inspired" because he was part Japanese.

My nephew served a mission in Japan in the 80's. The language skill led to a job in the tech industry --semiconductors, which has since gone belly up.

More interesting, perhaps, he married a Japanese girl who had converted in Japan and then came to Utah. His parents always maintained that they had not met in Japan --which would have been improper -- but it was just coincidence that they met after he returned to BYU/Weber State.

She had come from a very poor background in Japan and showed a lot of gumption in getting to Utah. I don't fault her at all, it was a golden ticket for her.

But I seem to remember that such young women had become problematical for the church -- aggressively following missionaries back to the states. Given that the Morg proselytizes most aggressively among the vulnerable, how common is it for unattached young women to follow missionaries to Utah? Will the same in reverse be a problem with more female missionaries -- if indeed it is a problem?

In the 1970s Japanese were overawed by the United States and sought to learn from it. So when Mormon missionaries showed up, they were taken very seriously. Then SLC bestowed Groberg and Kikuchi on the poor country, and they turned the missionary force into an extremely rude, manipulative, and myopic force that alienated the Japanese people. When they returned to the States, the new mission presidents tried to rebuild the more modest system that existed before.

But this never worked. By the mid- to late 1980s Japan was becoming an economic superpower and the people had lost their adoration for all things American. So missionaries converted few, and activity rates fell off as all those baseball-baptized people wandered off. By the early 2000s Stake and Mission presidents were still spending huge amounts of time trying to track down people who had been baptized in 1978-1981 to see if they knew they were Mormons or had any interest in being such. In short, the church basically grew until the early 1980s and then began a shrinkage that has not stopped. AT one point SLC sent a high General Authority to find out what had gone wrong, but he naturally refrained from asking any of us who had actual experience. All truth, after all, comes from bishops, stake presidents, mission presidents and area authorities who have a compelling interest in telling SLC what it wants to hear.

So where is Japan today? Well, the church reopened a second mission in Tokyo--I think they resurrected the cursed Tokyo South in which Groberg created his evil; I think our beloved FlattopSF served there. But while Japan remains a wonderful place to be a foreigner and a civil and interesting country to study and work in, it does not yield many baptisms. My guess is that rather than baptising 20-40 people in two years, the rate is now in the low single digits. Better than Europe, certainly, because it is such a comfortable country, but not a source of much growth.

If there ever was a Mormon Moment in Japan, it was roughly 1976-1985. But arrogant multi-level-marketers ruined that chance. As Elder Haight, then head of the overall missionary program later noted (without taking any responsibility), "things really went too far" in Japan.

--Pitchin' Mormon Business to Japanese Patriarchs

As missionaries looking for any way to hook converts, we were encouraged by mission leadership to do what was called "kaisha dendo," or business contacting.

It involved going to work places--i.e., commercial business settings such as company headquarters--and asking to speak with the male owner. We would introduce ourselves with business cards (which are very important contacting tools in Japanese society), complete with our names in kanji and the name of our organization (the Mormon Church), in both English and Japanese, Our "business" cards closely mimicked the style, typesetting and look of actual Japanese business cards and were designed to impress and gain us access.

Once in the door of the targeted business, we'd ask the front desk receptionist if we could speak to the head of the company. If the company head was not available, we'd ask for an appointment for a return visit, If granted access then and there, we'd be ushered into the company head's office where, more often than not, we'd promptly be offered tea as a social grace (which, of course, we promptly turned down--not exactly a good way to start the sales pitch, I must say).

We'd then slickly slide into our sales approach, trying to surreptitiously sell the company/corporation owner on the idea of holding, in his home, a Mormon Family Home Evening (without, at that point, getting too deep into the religion thing--you know, tithing, giving up tea and dedicating all your time, talents and resources to a church headquartered in Salt Lake City, America. That would all come later. First things first: Concentrate on the soft sell).

We attempted to hook the head of the company's interest by comparing his family to his company. (Japan is a male-dominated society and it was figured that this approach would go over well with, you know, the guys). The business contacting angle was designed to play to the head of the firm's ego by emphasizing to him that his business was successful because it featured a clear chain of command--one that was structured, goal-oriented and male leader-directed.

The president (so the script went) was the head of the firm who was responsible for making the big, important and final decisions for his present and future business needs, based upon a laid-out model or plan.

In approaching this task, the president has a vice-president with whom he consults, a senior officer of the company from whom the president receives input for effectively and efficiently running the company. The vice-president is often a person who has direct, face-to-face contact with the firm's employees on a regular basis, who is intimately aware of the day-to-day needs of the employees and who keeps tabs on the state of company employee morale, sales and success.

Having laid that groundwork, now came time to pitch the parallels between the guy's business and the guy's family.

The theme for snagging the business owner into further contact with the missionaries was to lure him into attention by convincing him that he could similarly structure his family like his business and in that way keep his family happy, productive and functional.

To accomplish this required a power pyramid, modeled after his own business's, one that went like this:

Your family, sir, is like your company.

You are the husband and father--the CEO, if you will--of your family. You are the head of this organization you call your family--just like you are the head of your business.

Just as you do at work, you, sir, are responsible for making the ultimate decisions that you determine are in the best interest of your family.

Your wife is the equivalent of your vice president. She can give you--the president/husband/father--her advice and observations, as they come from her vantage point from inside the family where she operates closer to the front lines, if you will, and where she works intimately and on a daily basis with your children.

Speaking of which . . .

Your children are your employees.

They are part and parcel of your family plan, like your workers are essential in operating your business plan. It is your job and responsibility as president/husband/father of your home to make sure that your children are productive, well-behaved and follow the rules that you establish (in consultation with your vice-president/wife/mother). You, sir, make the final decisions after seeking out assistance from your vice-presidential assistant/consultant.

The Mormon Family Home Evening program is the business plan for your family. It is organized around the president/husband/father's goals for his family, arrived at after touching base with his vice-president wife and. in the end, signed off by the male head of the house.

A successful Family Home Evening program works like a successful business plan.

To boost employee/children productivity and understanding of the goals of your family, the Family Home Evening program features lessons that teach the employees/children what is important and right for the family.

The lesson, or plan, opens and closes with prayer, asking for God's help that your family will understand this plan as being best for them--just like you, as president of your company, certainly would want heavens's help in running your business successfully.

As with your company employees, it is vital for you, as president of your home, to attend to the personal needs and desires of your children, as well as to the needs and desires of your vice-president wife. The Mormon Family Home Evening program provides opportunities for lessons, games, singing and other together-time activities designed for relaxing and enjoying fun things together with your vice-president wife and employee children. It is important that your vice-president/ wife and your children/employees be actively engaged in planning these fun times and are given responsibilities in carrying them out--all under your supervision and with your approval, of course. This will strengthen the bonds between you, as president/husband/father with your vice-president/wife/mother, as well as with your employees/children.

(Are you with me, dear readers?)

This whole male-centric promo (which, again, we as missionaries would make to the corporation/business head in his office at his work site) was accompanied by flip-charts, illustrations and diagrams to drive the point home--much like the official missionary discussions.

The idea was to get the Japanese man to agree to let the Mormon male missionaries come to his home and, together with his wife and children, actually conduct a Family Home Evening, under the missionaries' guidance, suggestions and outlining.

It was designed as a foot in the door.

But, alas, it didn't work very well.

Once the demonstration Family Home Evening was over and the missionaries asked for a follow-up meeting with the guy and his family to talk about a wonderful book that would bring their family forever-happiness and eternal life with God, eyebrows would more often than not lift and we'd politely be shown the door.

It was a disingenuous, manipulative, sneaky and sexist gimmick.

I hated it.

It represented the essential element of Mormon missionary work that bothered me the most: operating under false and misleading pretenses in order to gain converts.

In other words, the Utah Mormon business model.

Some more thoughts about my time there . . .


--Proselytyzing in the Heart of Nuclear Horror

As noted in the subject line, I was in the Japan West/Fukuoka mission back in the mid-'70s, first under Kan Watanabe and then Arthur Nishimoto. Watanabe was more outgoing amd personable while Nishimoto, having served in the U.S. military as a full-bird colonel, was more regimented.

I was assigned to Naha and Oroku, Okinawa; Miyazaki; Sasebo; and Hiroshima (the latter three up on the island of Kyushu).

In Hiroshima, I regularly visited (and, sadly, proselytized in) the epicenter of the A-bomb, known as "Heiwa Koen" or "Peace Park." The "Atomic Dome"--the remnants of Hiroshima's governmental industrial arts building--stood as a stark reminder of the horror of nuclear holocaust. I remember seeing survivors of the A-bomb walking through the park, their faces melted and bloated, their bodies disfigured and crippled. I visited grass-covered mass graves and brutally-showcased war museums--where my views on war waged at the expense of civilian populations were forever changed. Further south in Okinawa (where I began my mission), I visited World War II battlefields, where last-gasp hand-to-hand fighting, cave-clearing flame-throwing and group-forced suicide by soldiers and civilians alike were recalled in profoundly sobering and disturbing displays.

But back to "the Lord's work."


--Struggling to Baptize, Then Hold on To, Far-Eastern Asians Who Weren't in to American-Western Handcarts

As missionaries, we typically worked in small branches (Naha, Okinawa's capital, was the exception, which had a ward). Membership retention was an ongoing problem. Older men (priesthood bait needed to run the local congregations) were hard to snare, meaning that the missionaries frequently ran the branch meetings and supplementally staffed the auxilliary sub-groups. The general meetings were largely attended by women (old and young). The youth members showed up primarily for the social activities, not because they were drawn to Mormonism's frontier-America doctrine. Baptisms were hard to come by; I saw 11 during my mission and I seriously doubt that many of those converts are active today.

We employed a lot of deceptive bait-'n-switch tactics that were taught, approved and encouraged by mission leaders in our door approaches, in our business contacting, in our street and train-station crowd-working and in our free English classes--all designed to lure the Japanese into letting us into their houses. I hated it.


--Being Hosted by Subservient Females

When I was there, Japan was quite the patriarchal society (hence, we played to that unforunate reality with the all-hail-to-the-Mormon-prophet-male approach). Japanese women would typically serve meals when we were visiting in investigators' (as well as members') homes, often retreating quietly to the kitchen while the conversation went on with the guests in the other room. (I remember later meeting, quite by chance, one of the female Japanese members whom I had first met on my mission. She was at Temple Square during General Conference, no doubt looking for an eternal American mate).


--God Loses Out to Gambling

"Pachinko" parlors (the Japanese version of pinpall machines) were all over the place, crammed full of young boys and men who would mindlessly play the games for hours on end.


--The Male Degradation of Japanese Women

The public signage for Japan's version of X-rated moves was prominent and explicit, with females being overtly objectified on large billboards that were frequently featured along busy city streets.


--Cartoon Crudeness

The "manga," or cartoons, were typically and horrifically violent, featuring gory scenes of stabbings and shootings that were over-the-top graphic and bloody, yet regularly watched by very young children.


--Allegiance to the Group, not to the "Gaijin" (Meaning "Foreigner")

The mentality of the Japanese nation was one which placed a premium on group compliance, with strong emphasis on sacrificing for the good of the company and nation at the expense of individualism, all the while avoiding shaming those in authority. That meant not embarrassing one's family by, for instance, joining an American religious cult.


--Free English, in Exchange for a Lifetime of Mormonism

As missionaries, we used to advertise and teach free English classes as a ploy designed to lure Japanese businessmen and students into taking the lesson-plan discussions (The Japanese liked to learn conversational English directly from native speakers, preferring it over the regimented English classes taught in Japanese public schools that were long on structure and short on the actual development of free-flowing conversational skills)


--Angling for the Kids

Japanese youth were enthralled with Western fashion and music. They would wear American-style jeans and t-shirts--the latter often decorated with English-language slogans (even though the wording was often grammatically broken and just as often unwittingly hilarious). Japanese boys would sport what we called "aircraft-carrier" haircuts--protruding out long in the front, waxed along the sides and ducktailed in the back--all while clogging around in their traditonal Japanese shoes, or "getas."

The Osmonds were very popular when I was there (particularly Jimmy), so we used to regularly trot out pictues of the Osmond family smiling and holding up Japanese copies of the Book of Mormon. (That gimmick was especially effective in catching the attention of Japanese schoolgirls).


--My Personal Distaste for the Fakeness of It All

It was such a disingenuous way to approach the people and I never really liked it nor was comfortable doing it. I felt like I was play-acting my way through a distasteful charade, despite what I was outwardly saying or showing. I eventually came to inwardly disdain it, given that it was so phony and deceptive. I actually enjoyed becoming a mission leader, as the assignment allowed me to spend less time hitting people up on the street in ways that bugged both them and me.


--On the Brighter Side

Despite all the Mormon-generated unpleasantness, the upside to my mission was that Japan is a beautiful country full of wonderful, fascinating people with a rich cultural tradition uniquely their own. Their holidays were festive and colorful, with both men and women dressed in striking historical costuming. Their Shinto and Buddhist temples were open and elegant. Their traditional gardens--complete with bonsai trees, arched bridges and meticulously sculpted grounds--were simple and stunning. Their natural landscapes, from the rice paddies to the mountains (and including, because of a lack of space, rice paddies on the sides of mountains), were serene and majestic.

I wish I had spent my stint there as an out-of-the-nest 19- to 21-year-old focusing on absorbing Japanese culture, learning the naton's history and appreciating its amazing singularity instead of wasting such opportunties by peddling silly Mormon propaganda to a nation that really doesn't want it, really doesn't need it and really doesn't relate to it.


--Ode to My "Dodes" (Short for "Dorio," Meaning "Companion")

In the years since, I haven't kept in meaningful contact with my former companions, nor they with me. I wouldn't be surprised if, for many of them, their missions were an early phase of life they went through as obedient, youthful soldiers for Zion but who now are far less involved, devout or even faithful at all.


--Big-City Memories and Small-Zoo Atrocities

For what it's worth, my most memorable recollection of big-city Fukuoka was not of any Mormon temple (there wasn't one back then, anyway). It was of an angry, captive chimpanzee spitting through his cage bars on human gawkers at the city zoo.

I warned a fellow missionary to be careful but he was bound and determined to get a good shot of the displeased and ornery chimp who was sitting,hunched over, at the back of his cage glaring at his unwanted visitors.

The chimp slowly filled his cheeks with water sucked up through his pursed lips from his drinking trough then, without warning, dashed down toward the front of his chain-linked cage, leapt to the top of his enclosure and unleashed the contents of his cheeks, drenching the Mormon elder with a great shot of his own--one that spit-split the missionary right down the middle, drenching his suitcoat and gooping up his nice, long-lens, pricey Nikon camera.

Talk about a missionary door approach gone wrong.

Another equally distressing scene (at least from the perspective of abused animals) was when, early in my mission, I went to a so-called "zoo" in Okinawa, where a mongoose and a cobra were thrown into the same cage to fight it out in front of a bunch of hollering homo sapiens.

The mongoose, by instinct, was focused on attacking the snake, while the snake was likewise focused on fighting for its life.

The animals eyed each other warily, each threatening the other. The cobra eventually struck out at the aggressive mongoose, whereupon one of its fangs became lodged in the tongue of it tormentor. The mongoose proceeded to drag the snake around inside the glass enclosure of this cage-fight, tongue painfully extended from its mouth, unable to shake itself loose from the cobra.

The human handler finally stepped in and pulled the snake out of the mongoose.

It was awful.

*****


Japan was a conflicted mix for me--an experience of good and bad. I learned a lot there. I learned what an amazing place the country was, with gracious, hard-working and devoted people.

I remember, especially and early on, doubting the depth of my testimony. I was in my first area. Despite my earnest study, I had nagging doubts about the veracity of the Book of Mormon, so late one night I climbed up to the roof of our apartment in Okinawa, seeking answers.

I remember the moon was out, dramatiucally reflecting off the clouds in what we called "typhoon alley." I paced back and forth for hours, praying for God to tell me that the Book of Mormon was true.

Finally, after a long futile effort, I "heard" a voice inside me ordering me to go to bed because I had work to do in the morning--missionary work. I stuffed my doubts down deep and plowed ahead, finishing my mission as a zone leader and returning, ostensibly faithful, to the fold.

I told that apartment-rooftop story to a young-adult fireside audience upon returning from my mission--after which my mom reprimanded me, telling me that I was not to repeat that story again since, she declared, I had always had a testimony.

But Mormonism--as I was to eventually find out through my own stubborn thinking, digging and asking--wasn't true and, hence, wasn't for me.

Too bad it took me so long to arrive at that conclusion.

I would have much more enjoyed Japan as a Gentile.



Edited 14 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 03:52AM by steve benson.

Wow - dishonest and sneaky is right. But that's how they teach you to sell Mormonism. Whatever works for the culture is justified. Not dishonest - justified.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 12:21AM by steve benson.

Interesting - thanks Steve!

TSCC like to use new congregations as an indicator of thier growth. The island I was on, Sapporo, has the same number of stakes that it had 25 years ago.

Thanks everyone - this is the kind of information that I was looking for. I'm glad my son has decided not to go on a mission but if he were going to go, it seems like Japan would be a good, safe place where he'd learn a lot. I'm not sorry to hear how baptism rates have dropped - glad the Japanese saw through the Mormons.

Been here in Tokyo close to two months now (new job) and have not seen a single pair of Mo mishies. Compare that to when I was in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Thailand; within a couple of weeks I saw a pair of sister and elder mishies walking or on bikes. Perhaps I live too far east of the capital to see mishie haunts? Anyway, this ward is a mixed suburban/commercial area very close to the bay and is supposed to be a family friendly city. I assume just by our school population that there may be more Christians than Mos here.

I am so glad the Mo craziness has ceased here. But the locals are apparently still familiar with them. When I mentioned to a Japanese co-worker that I visited family in Utah, she immediately asked if I were Mo.

I served in Sendai. It was a bitch. I was a language superfreak and picked it up right away--I was also anxiously engaged and one of those elders I am sure the rest of the mission loved to hate in some respects (I was sincere and that's what got me--I climbed right on up the ladder without even trying). The meme posted by Br. Galileo is at least partly accurate.

In any case, the Japanese haven't "caught onto" Mormonism so much as consistently and reliably ignored it.

Elder Kikuchi is the star of the LDS show in Japan. I leave it to the reader to judge his utility in any significant capacity vis-a-vis proselytizing etc. I met him once and like any good missionary worshipped him, even as I observed a very minor Elder and Sister peccadillo happen right underneath his nose during a zone conference over which he presided. He was never the wiser.

The Church is widely considered a nuisance there, mostly because the missionaries spend their time harassing the good people of Japan who have no desire to be harassed into heaven. Go figure.

Baptismal rates were very low--I didn't have a single one. I also saw overall missionary numbers from from 112 to 86 while I was there (between seven and nine years ago).

Five hundred people were on the rolls in one of my wards--less than one hundred were at Church. Less than a dozen Melchizedek priesthood holders in that ward. Tokyo is a black hole for investigators, converts, and ward members alike. Wards shrink and never recover.

The ward members dislike the missionaries just as much as nonmembers in Japan. We were always at odds with them (although I did encounter a few friends).

Long hours, few to no results. Like I said, a bitch. Hot and humid in the summer, bone chillingly cold in the winter (at least in Sendai). MP's didn't have a clue. (First was American and second was Japanese). About anything.

Lots of eternal investigators and stupid English classes with stupid people (who were too cheap to pay for legitimate instruction and strange enough to hang around after they learned that they were taking classes form cult pushers). Weird.

Did I mention the porn? Everywhere--not helpful for young missionaries. I didn't have a problem with it, but there were those who did. And when you are that young and that horny, even mugi starts to look very good (actually, some mugi are very attractive, but the point is--who the hell thought it was a good idea to send sexually repressed young adults to one of the sexiest countries? Stupid!). Like we always said, "Remember the oats!"

Ugh. I hated every moment of my experience. It didn't help that I was dealing with intense inner turmoil that perpetuated itself throughout the whole 2 years, day in and day out, that left me broken and empty. I'm still dealing with that trauma. Thanks, First Presidency and your stupid computer that sent me to Japan (not that Japan was so bad, per se, but there would have been better places for me where I would not have been so isolated etc.). Dicks.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2013 02:35PM by sonoma.

Wow - sounds like it's not the most rewarding place to be a missionary these days, although that is true of pretty much everywhere. But it sounds like in Japan, they are more able to just walk away and let it die because they are sure in themselves of who they are and "don't need to be harassed into heaven."

Yes. You have to remember that Japan is an island nation thousands of miles away from the heart of Mormonism in UT.

Those of us who are American members (particularly if we come from the UT, ID, NV, AZ heartland or West Coast) find that proximity to UT creates a certain perception of Mormonism as rolling inexorably forth throughout the world that is patently untrue. Mormonism is a meager, miserly faith tradition with so little influence as to render its protestations otherwise and ejaculations of "One True Church" sincerely pathetic.

Active Mormons are .05% of the world population (or there abouts--they'll never tell). Who are they trying to kid? Small and losing ground (certainly not growing!).

Japan is a nation of religiously flexible/agnostic jingoists. They couldn't care less about this strange interloper on their native soil. Most Japanese are, as the saying goes, born Buddhist, married Christian (lots of visible cache--very sexy!), and Shinto in death. It is tradition, not viable religious fervor that motivates their cultural beliefs and behavior.

Catholicism may be enormous, but not in certain parts of the world. All Mormons on the books make up only a meager 1.4% of all Catholic membership. If the Catholic Church can, with all its bloated membership, make only a passing influence on the Christian parts of the world, how little is Mormonism going to influence things (in the absence of a "major player" like Mitt Romney). How much more is this the case in non-English speaking, non-Christian nations like Japan, China, India, Africa, etc. Mormonism is not a drop in the bucket. It isn't a drop in the drop--it's a single molecule in a single drop being subjected to the evaporating rays of truth via the Internet and it isn't going to last much longer.

As they say in Japan, sayonara.

I have a relative on a mission there now. But will not likely hear about it because am an evil "anti-Mo" and assume will not privy to the details due to speaking out about my disbelief.

Interesting post, anonymous for this. I just don't see Japan (or any of the countries you mention) as a hotbed for Mormonism. Sure, there will always be few Mos over there, which will help the Mos convince themselves that they are a world religion, but nothing that anyone would ever notice.

Japan is one of two countries -- the other is India -- that I think are culturally a very bad fit for Mormonism.

Just wanting to add that in 2008 (March I believe), I ended up closing down a ward which had gone from 600 members (on the books) to 22 active. Also the same is true for another branch I served in. Huge at first, now mostly gone.

I love Japan so much and am happy to see it not doing well with Mormonism.

Also, to add a country that doesn't fit Mormonism, my wife is from Cambodia (off subject a little), but since 12 years ago, membership has gone from 18 to 15, and the stake president apparently fathered a son out of wedlock (but is still serving). That led to many more "apostates" too. Cambodia may I add is another nation that is doing very poorly with Mormonism, and rightly so.

Go world!