メリディアン

日本語

編集室

2008年3月7日

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Tokyo South Mission 1979-1981

From July, 1978 until June 1981 in the Tokyo South Mission, thousands of young people, mostly male, joined the Church where most of them attended one of the newly established 41 small units with other young people who were converts. It was a joyous time. Friends introduced friends to missionaries. Baptisms were held almost every week. After a year, many new converts chose to serve missions. A high percentage of them were active in the small units (a Sacrament meeting attendance rate of 40% indicates an activity rate of at least 60% activity by standards of the day). They had friends, callings and were being nurtured in the word of God.  

Rather suddenly the small units were closed and these young church members were assigned to attend older Church units where they had neither friends, nor callings and where the older members of the church were sometimes overwhelmed, having families, jobs, often numerous challenging church callings.  So with the increase in these new younger members, they had no precedent to follow or resources sufficient for giving them the nurture that they would liked to have given, and that they had been getting in the small units. It was a chaotic time for leaders and members of the older units as well as for the young members who were transferred into those units. Many of the younger members chose not to continue to attend Church.