メリディアン
日本語
日本の末日聖徒イエス・キリスト教会歴史
See Introduction to this Series
GREETING FROM ELDER FUJIWARA
TO THE READERS IN HAWAII AND AMERICA
Succeeding Brother Nara, former presiding elder, I was appointed by the First Presidency of the Church to preside over the Saints in Japan and to do special missionary work among the Japanese people. Thus I was sent to Japan in order to take full charge and direct the affairs of the Church in Japan, according to the light which the Lord through His Spirit may give me and in keeping with the instructions of the First Presidency.
Reflecting on the church affairs in Japan, for twenty and some years until August 1924 since the opening of the Japan Mission of the Church by President Heber J. Grant (then an apostle) in 1901, the Gospel of Christ, Truth of Mormonism, and the Church doctrines had been propagated in Japan even against many difficulties, sufferings, hardships, persecutions and oppressions.
There had been many great sacrifices, self-sacrifices and whole-hearted devotions of the Church, the missionaries and a few of the most faithful Saints. Nevertheless, mission works had been hardly progressed because of the indifference of the Japanese toward our religion and less faithfulness of the Japanese Saints. Meantime, due to the great disaster and earthquake in Japan in 1922 and the so-called anti-Japanese law of the U.S., which was passed in 1924, the date of the withdrawal of the missionaries from Japan was much quickened. Finally, in August, 1924, President Hilton A. Robertson of the Mission with tears closed the missionary activities according to the instructions from the First Presidency.
Thus the Japanese Saints and friends of the Church in Japan had no worthy leaders and church meetings, and they were left alone and neglected from the Church .
Editor's note: In the pdf file, the English portion of the single issue of Hattatsu is either incomplete or was not completed by Brother Fujiwara. This fifth part and the coming sixth are what we have.