Unique But Not Different: Latter-day Saints in Japan by Shinji Takagi, Conan Grames, and Meagan Rainock is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Japanese Latter-day Saints. The book is based on a comprehensive survey data, which it explores to examine the diverse social, political, and ideological backgrounds of Japanese Latter-day Saints. Over the course of exploring those data, the book provides valuable insights for scholars, missionaries, Church leaders, and members alike about the state of the Church in Japan. The format is very academic in its investigation of the survey results and reads more like a scientific paper than narrative history, and it is very well done.
Category: The International Church
“Mensaje de paz”
“Mensaje de paz” by Joel Morales is notable as being the song that was sung when Elder Melvin J. Ballard and then-ambassador J. Reuben Clark, Jr. visited with the Latter-day Saints in Mexico in 1932. Morales is also the author of “La Proclamación” and “Final.”
“Tened en Dios Confianza”
I have not been able to find out much about “Tened en dios confianza,” nor about its author, José V. Estrada G. On a more personal note, however, this was the first hymn that I worked with when I started contemplating the Mexican Mission Hymns Project around six years ago. The original music for the hymn that I wrote was even one of the five I submitted for consideration with the new hymnbook.
“Placentero nos es trabajar”
“Placentero nos es trabajar” or “Despedida” is one of the more popular hymns that is included in Latter-day Saint hymn books, written by a Latter-day Saint, but not in the English hymnal at this time. Hence, I’ve been consistent in pointing it out as a likely candidate for inclusion in the forthcoming hymnal. While I’ve talked about this hymn in the past, this post will serve two purposes—first, it is going to be where I pick up the Mexican Mission Hymns series. Second, it’s also a co-post for a recent interview with John A Gonzalez—the grandson of Andrés Carlos González, the author of the hymn—at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 21: Maya
As the Church became strongly established in Mexico, it spread from the historic epicenters in Mexico City and the northern colonies to reach across the full country—including among the Maya peoples of southern Mexico.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 20: Stakes and Temples
The Third Convention was reunited to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in part due to the observation that stakes with local leadership and local temples would come only as the schism healed and the Church continued to become stronger in Mexico. It took some time, but stakes and temples did come.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 19: The Third Convention
Events conspired to create a schism in the Church in Mexico, but eventually the Third Convention group that had split reunited with the Church.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 18: The First Two Conventions
Despite dealing with isolation and neglect, Latter-day Saints in Mexico continued to function and serve well. But eventually, things reached a breaking point.
Latter-day Saints in Micronesia and Guam
At the last general conference, I was impressed by something briefly mentioned by Quentin L. Cook. He talked about a seventh-generation member from Tahiti, with her ancestors joining the Church in 1845 (2 years before the Latter-day Saints in the U.S. migrated to Utah/Deseret or Brigham Young organized the First Presidency).[1] It was a brief (but important) reminder that the history of the Church is larger than the United States and the United Kingdom, even in the earliest days of the Church. While Micronesia and Guam do not have as long of a history with the Church as Tahiti or Hawai’i, they still are home to notable populations of Latter-day Saints and a rich history. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk, R. Devan Jensen discussed the history of the Church in Micronesia and Guam (in connection with the book Battlefields to Temple Grounds: Latter-day Saints in Guam and Micronesia).
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 17: Sans Anglo-American Leadership
While Mexico had stabilized from the Revolution, the 1920s saw continuing strains for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mexico.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 16: Colonial Decimation
The Latter-day Saint colonies in Mexico were becoming successful after years of effort. But the Mexican Revolution changed them forever.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 15: War
The Mexican Revolution impacted every Mexican, and that included the Mexican Latter-day Saints, some of whom did their best to stay out of the conflict, some of whom became casualties of war, and some of whom joined in the revolution.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 14: Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a decade of terrible destruction that brought a wave of changes to the Church in Mexico.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 13: A Mission Revived
The closure of the mission in Mexico in 1889 led to an 12-year gap in the presence of missionaries and official church leadership in central Mexico. Ammon Tenney worked to restart the mission, connecting with the Latter-day Saints who were effectively abandoned and beginning new efforts at proselytizing.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 12: Bautista’s Lamanites
While efforts to gather converts from central Mexico failed and the mission in central Mexico closed, there would still be future successes. Among the earliest converts in the 20th century in Mexico, the Bautista family would go on to have an impact on the Church for years to come, including the development of an indigenous-affirming perspective on Lamanite identity.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 11: The Gathering
An attempt to found a colony of Mexican converts in the north didn’t end up going as well as anyone had hoped, to disastrous results.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 10: Lamanites
A lot of early missionary work in Mexico was driven by an understanding that the missionaries were preaching to Lamanites. But being considered a Lamanite can be both a blessing and a curse.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 9: Persisting Polygamy
As a haven established to practice polygamy, the colonies in northern Mexico played a role in plural marriage persisting in the Church into the 20th century.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 8: Colonization
One of the important aspects of the Church’s presence in Mexico was the establishment of colonies in the far north. Intended as refuges against anti-polygamy legislation and persecution, the colonies were a constellation of settlements that proved successful for many years and, in some cases, still continue to exist to this day.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 6: Voz de amonestación
The first two years of missionary work in central Mexico brought some long-standing successes, such as the conversion of Desideria Quintanar de Yáñez and her family, and some frustrating failures, as was the case with Plotino C. Rhodakanaty.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 5: Thanks to Plotino
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints post-WWII, the statement that a socialist and anarchist was largely responsible for initiating missionary work in the country that is home to the second-largest community of Latter-day Saints is unexpected. Yet, that is exactly what happened in Mexico thanks to Plotino Constantino Rhodakanaty and his associates.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 4: Look out for places where our brethren could go
It seems that in times of trouble, the early Latter-day Saints looked towards Mexico for refuge.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 3: A few things that needed to happen
Elder Parley P. Pratt’s mission to Chile highlighted a few things that needed to happen in order to successfully establish missions in Spanish-speaking countries.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 2: To the Islands or to Chile
The first attempt to proselyte to Spanish-speaking peoples was not directed at Mexico, but was aimed at Chile instead.
Mormonism in Mexico, Part 1: Westward to Mexico
It’s time to return to the Mexican Mission Hymns project, with a slight change. Instead of running hymn translations and the brief history discussions together, they will be separate posts moving forward. To do this properly, the previous history segments are going to be rerun as their own posts, starting with this one.
Voice of the Saints in Mongolia
Voice of the Saints in Mongolia by Po Nien (Felipe) Chou and Petra Chou is an informative account of the establishment and growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Mongolia. As the first comprehensive history of the Church in Mongolia, the book breaks historical ground and provides valuable insights into the challenges and blessings of bringing the gospel to a rugged, harsh climate and a people with deeply rooted (non-Christian) beliefs and traditions.
Online Christmas concerts: Salt Lake brings inclusiveness and simplicity. Europe does not.
Besides the large public Christmas concerts at Temple Square, the Church also offers a less spectacular, pre-recorded one-hour Christmas concert for online view, worldwide. For 2022 the Church produced “The Promise of Christmas”. Bravo! I don’t know if they employ a Diversity Consultant, but they certainly hit the mark. Opening: immediate focus on two singing non-Caucasian girls, next broadening to the full One Voice Children’s Choir. The kids all casually dressed, naturally moving on stage. Black presenter Stephen Jones, in his warm, easygoing style, sets the tone for an intimate musical journey with church members from around the world. The program features genuine singing from Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa, and from a string of joyful groups in the Africa West Area, flashing a modern Africa in urban settings, future-oriented, and thus avoiding the folklorization of aboriginal villages. Heart-warming are the cozy strings of the “Simply Three”, accompanied by a black pianist. A few other groups bring simple, pleasant music for all audiences. All casually dressed: all should feel included. Personally, I would have liked to see more contributions from other countries instead of the noisy Utah Pipe Band, the bubbly BYU Folk Dancers, or the impeccable BYU Vocal Point, but others certainly enjoy those US contributions. At the center of this Salt Lake-based concert is the adorable telling of the nativity story, with very simple, quietly animated drawings in black and white—suitable for all cultures and age groups. No…
Christmas Carols in the French Hymnbook
A few years ago, I talked about Christmas songs that are included in the various translations of the Latter-day Saint hymnbook that are not in the English hymnal. I’m hoping to share the music and translations of those songs over the next few Decembers, starting this time with the music in the French hymnbooks. In this case, there are three Christmas hymns in the hymnbook that appear in the French edition that aren’t in the English: “He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child” “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” and “Sing We Now of Christmas“. He Is Born, the Divine Christ Child “He Is Born” (“Il est né le divin Enfant”) is a relatively well-known carol that is included in the French and Tahitian hymnbooks. For the translation presented below, I’ve used the Samuel Bradshaw translation paired with the music from the French hymnal. Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” (“Es ist ein Ros entsprungen”) is a well-known German Christmas song frequently sung during the Advent season that leads up to Christmas. It is also one of the Christmas sonsg featured most frequently in Latter-day Saint hymnbooks outside of the English edition. It is included in the German, Dutch, French, Icelandic, and Swedish editions of the hymnal. I’ve elected to use the translation that I’m most accustomed to (the Theodore Baker translation) paired with the music from the French hymnal. Given that the French…
Zion and 19th Century Cross-cultural Missionary Work
How does a faith that claims global reach while being rooted in a specific Anglo-American context in the 19th century interact with cultures that are different from the Anglo-American culture of their time? Further, how did they approach that issue while also being a pariah among the general Anglo-American culture? These are some of the types of questions that are examined in Amanda Hendrix-Komoto’s Imperial Zions: Religion, Race, and Family in the American West and the Pacific. In a recent interview at the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto discussed some of her study. The book Imperial Zions studies the intersection of missionary work and polygamy while interacting with Native Americans and Pacific Islanders. As Hendrix-Komoto explained: Imperial Zions is an attempt to understand how the meaning of Latter-day Saint missionary work shifted as they moved between imperial spaces. In Hawai‘i, Latter-day Saints positioned themselves against existing Protestant missionaries and U.S. imperialism. In the Intermountain West, they became the agents of U.S. colonialism. At the same time, I am interested in how Native Americans understood the Church and have analyzed oral histories, personal correspondence, and church records to understand how Native Latter-day Saints created a vision of the faith that centered their experiences rather than those of their white co-religionists. It’s a complicated matrix to explore, since it examines so many different perspectives. For example, on one front there is the attempts at vilification and discrediting of Latter-day Saints by…
Imperial Zions
Latter-day Saints in the 19th century existed at a paradoxical intersection of American history. When they fled to Alta California to settle the Great Basin, they were refugees fleeing from the United States. Defiantly practicing plural marriage in the face of federal laws that opposed the principle, they came to face a heavy-handed effort by Americans to colonize their community of Deseret to match the broader American culture. At the same time, they were colonizers in their own right, settling land claimed by other peoples for hundreds of years by dispossessing the Native Americans, while also launching a missionary effort into the Pacific Ocean. In Imperial Zions: Religion, Race, and Family in the American West and the Pacific, Amanda Hendrix-Komoto explores these paradoxes and how the Latter-day Saints (Euro-American, Native American, and Pacific Islander) navigated them. In many ways, Imperial Zions itself sits at the intersection of several landmark studies of Latter-day Saint history, synthesizing them together while building on that foundation. I felt like it brought together W. Paul Reeve’s Religion of a Different Color (Oxford University Press, 2015), Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A House Full of Females (Knopf, 2017), Darren Parry’s The Bear River Massacre: A Shoshone History (BCC Press, 2019), and Hokulani Aikau’s A Chosen People, a Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai’i (University of Minnesota Press, 2012) together in one place to have a conversation and work out how they all fit together in a larger…