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Japan 1901-1924

The Early Japanese Mission

President Lorenzo Snow, who had pursued a course of expansion since he became leader of the Church in 1898, announced plans on February 14, 1901, to open a mission in Japan.1 He chose Elder Heber J. Grant of the Council of the Twelve Apostles to preside over the new mission.

More than four decades had passed since the Church had first attempted to expand into Asia. The years since the 1850s had been difficult for the Church. Doubtless the most serious problem had been polygamy, or plural marriage, as the Saints preferred to call it. Church leaders and members alike had endured physical and psychological harassment from the government and the general public. Not until 1896, years after Utah first applied for statehood, was statehood achieved. But by the turn of the century the Church was gaining acceptance among the American people (though there were yet many barriers to pass, such as the Reed Smoot hearings in the Senate), and its financial situation was somewhat improved over that of a few years before. Perhaps these and other improvements gave President Snow and the Council of the Twelve the courage to pursue once again the great commission to take the gospel to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people" (D&C 133:37).

There were several reasons why the Brethren decided to open a mission in Japan rather than in China or some other Asian nation. China was at this time recovering from the disruption and shock of the Boxer uprising, in which Christian missionaries had been among the main targets of Chinese anti-foreignism. Southeast Asia seemed to be beyond the purview and experience of most Latter-day Saints at that time, and India had already proved a failure from the LDS point of view. Japan, on the other hand, had shown to the world through its victory in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 that it had "made wonderful strides within a few years in the arts of civilization."2 Japan's modernization encouraged Church leaders because they believed that any people who were progressive would also be open to the message of the Restoration. Moreover, President Snow and other Church authorities had met some of Japan's most distinguished leaders and had found them to be men of goodwill, men who they believed would help the Church succeed if it were introduced in Japan.

When President Snow announced the new mission, he explained that he had been thinking about such a mission for many years. In 1872 "a party of distinguished officials of the Japanese government [the Iwakura diplomatic mission] visited Salt Lake en route to Washington from their own country," reported President Snow in 1901. "During their stopover they called on the Legislature and were given an appropriate welcome. . . . They expressed a great deal of interest in Utah and the manner in which it had been settled by the Mormons. Our talk was altogether very pleasant and they expressed considerable wonderment as to why we had not sent missionaries to Japan. That, together with the knowledge that they are a progressive people has remained with me until the present time, and while it may not be the actuating motive in attempting to open a mission there now, it probably had something to do with it."3