The Japanese Missionary Journals of Elder Alma O. Taylor,

Transcription

1 The Japanese Missionary Journals of Elder Alma O. Taylor, Reid L. Neilson BYU Studies Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History Provo, Utah

2 Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History Produced by the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History and BYU Studies Also in the Series: A Study of the Origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania by Larry C. Porter A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri by Alexander L. Baugh A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri from 1836 to 1839 by Leland Homer Gentry To Make True Latter-day Saints : Mormon Recreation in the Progressive Era by Richard Ian Kimball The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants by Robert J. Woodford Alexander Schreiner: Mormon Tabernacle Organist by Daniel Frederick Berghout 2001 Reid L. Neilson. All rights reserved. Contact the author at ReidNeilson@hotmail.com Cover: Portrait courtesy of Carla Christensen, design by Nichole Klein. This dissertation was approved in August No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author. To contact the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, write to: 121 KMB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah To contact BYU Studies, write to 403 CB, Brigham Young University, PO Box 24098, Provo, Utah ISBN Printed in the United States of America ii

3 Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History Over the years, graduate students have written many important dissertations on Latter-day Saint topics. Unfortunately, they have typically been unavailable or unknown to lay readers. All too often, good copies of dissertations reside only at the institution at which they were written or on a few researchers book shelves. BYU Studies and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History hope to fill this gap by producing and distributing selected dissertations of interest to Latter-day Saints, making them available to a larger audience. The works in this series have been reformatted from the originals. Nevertheless, these dissertations have undergone only minimal editing. For example, some typographical errors have been corrected. Original page numbers are referenced in the text by superscripted italicized numerals in brackets (e.g., [3] ). Occasionally, the author has included additional information in the endnotes to update old material. Those additions have been placed in brackets and italicized to distinguish them from the original text. Otherwise, the text is identical to the work accepted by the dissertation committee. iii

4 To the Japanese Saints

5 Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments vi vii Chapters 1. Introduction 1 2. The Japan Mission: First Efforts, Alma O. Taylor: Among the First in the Japan Mission Journal Editorial Guidelines Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Alma O. Taylor Journal, Epilogue 423 Biographical Register 429 Bibliography 465 Abstract 471 Index available free online at Click on publications, then dissertations, and follow the links to The Japanese Missionary Journals of Elder Alma O. Taylor, v

6 Illustrations Alma O. Taylor viii The first four missionaries to Japan at a missionary benefit dinner in Salt Lake City in summer Louis A. Kelsch, Alma O. Taylor, and Heber J. Grant at the dedication site in Yokohama, Heber J. Grant, Mary Grant (daughter), and Augusta Grant (plural wife) in Japan, c Horace S. Ensign at the mission home in Tokyo 16 Map of Japan 30 Alma O. Taylor mending his clothes 262 Horace S. Ensign sleeping on the floor of the Tokyo mission home 262 Four missionaries in Japan, c. early 1900s 306 Elders with Japanese Sunday School children in Tokyo 306 Alma O. Taylor, Heber J. Grant, and others enjoying a traditional Japanese dinner 354 Missionaries visit the Nikko Shrine, c. early 1900s 354 Japanese members and investigators standing outside an early church meeting house 392 Alma O. Taylor and Louis A. Kelsch, in kimonos, meet with a friend 392 vi