Item Detail
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31967
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0
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3
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English
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Not Weary in Well-Doing : The Missionary Role of LDS Servicemen in Occupied Japan, 1945–1953
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Journal of Mormon History
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2020
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46
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3
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Salt Lake City, UT
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Mormon History Association
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60-76
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"Japan in the years immediately following World War II presents an interesting example of church growth that was driven neither by full-time missionaries nor local members. From September 1945 through June 1948, responsibility for spreading the gospel in Japan was assumed enthusiastically and almost exclusively by LDS servicemen participating in the occupation, including Ray Hanks, Mel Arnold, L. Tom Perry, and Boyd K. Packer. During this time LDS servicemen reestablished church units across the country, located and gathered the few prewar Japanese converts who had been left isolated by the war, attracted the first investigators in decades, and performed the initial postwar baptisms. Such work was foundational to the success of the Japanese Mission when it was reestablished almost three years later. In the words of Elder Aki, a postwar convert whose full-time mission was financed by donations from LDS servicemen, “As terrible as was war in Japan, it proved a great blessing. . . . As a result, it brought the Latter-day Saint servicemen back to Japan who paved the way for the reopening of the Japanese Mission.” This article traces the missionary efforts of Mormon servicemen in Japan, which were crucial to the growth of the church there after World War II." [Author]