Just read on the LDS temples site that they have dissolved one ward and three branches in one of the Nagoya stakes! Japan like Britain is dying a slow death when it comes to the Mormon church! Wards and Branches closing, soon it will be Stakes dissolved! Yeah for the Internet!

Yay !

"The Lord is fulfilling His promise that His gospel shall be as the stone cut out of the mountain without hands which would roll forth and fill the whole earth, as Daniel saw in vision (see Daniel 2:31–45; D&C 65:2). A great miracle is taking place right before our eyes."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/the-stone-cut-out-of-the-mountain?lang=eng&_r=1

It's Armageddon.

Love this.

When I was a mishie in japan 89-91 there were 10 so-called "missions" in japan. They're down to 7.

Seven seems like a LOT to me. Ten is nuts. I was in (FRG, pre-reunification) Germany 78-80 and there were four there, which I thought was a lot then - 1000 mishies give or take. Not to mention one in Switzerland and one in Austria, so six German speaking with some 1400 suckers with absolutely nothing to do but jerk off. Good times.

Void K Packer - which mission were you in? I was there the same time. Munich mission. I think of all the missionaries who worked themselves to a frazzle trying to sell crap to people who were way too smart to buy. Glad to say, my MP was one of the best people I have ever known, and never played the games many MPs (and other church leaders) tend to play.

You had Busche. We were infinitely jealous of you all. We were in Frankfurt. Under Flade. That Flade. A genuine, card carrying Nazi and SS officer during the war. What could possibly go wrong with him being a mission prez?

Busche is a good man. I met him a couple of times and read his book Yearning for the Living God. I've thought that he would have has a very difficult time continuing his calling if he found out the truth. Maybe that is why he was made an Emeritus GA when it seemed he was still in good health.

Everything we ever heard about Busche indicated he was (is?) and exceptionally decent and good human being. That I even remember his name is remarkable. I never knew then who was running the other German speaking missions, much less now, but everyone knew Busche by his reputation.

Meanwhile, we had that asshat Flade who aside from his personal style and idiotic rules like wearing hats with black suits and trench coats, making us look like the goddam Gestapo, was running businesses on the side - selling cars, selling missionary made "inspirational" cassette tapes back to those who made them, milking the COB all he could, etc.

Being a missionary in Japan must be as frustrating as France! Nobody is interested, nobody cares!

And as frustrating as Scotland.

From my friends in Scotland there are quite a few wards hanging on by their finger nails!

Now I really love this.

Did a little looking and found this

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1992/10/the-blossoming-of-the-church-in-japan?lang=eng

Japanese stats end of 1991 show 265 congregations in japan.


http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/statistics/units/japan/

Japanese stats now show 261 congregations.

More than 32,000 converts join, then they shuttered 4 congregations and closed 3 missions. Yet they Built 2 more temples, why?

Bi-polar?

ETA: oh, I forgot that they closed and SOLD OFF the japan mtc that was adjacent to the Tokyo temple.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2017 09:10AM by Levi.

Kinda like a rough stone rolling! As Always, tnurg (GRUNT)

In the year 2000 there was 317 wards and branches! So has dropped by at least 56 wards and branches!

Yaaaay Nagoya! The city of my youth!
Studied at NUFS and lived in Moriyama-ku and later Okazaki just a train ride down the road. Never knew there was a ward there. I was too busy being the best kyabajo in town.

Don't you mean that they opened 4 new Units to help keep up with explosive growth?

"These prophecies about filling the world and being known world over: Preposterous? Perhaps. Unlikely? Undoubtedly. Impossible? Emphatically no. It is happening before our eyes."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/the-time-shall-come?lang=eng


"Koltko-Rivera projects that the Mormons will grow to more than 2.6 billion members worldwide by 2120."

http://www.charismanews.com/us/34365-mormon-church-set-to-become-worlds-largest


And this isn't even counting those who didn't get baptized in mortality but have since been baptized. For example, an artist born in Austria during the 19th century was finally baptized on Dec 10, 1993 in London over 48 years after he died in Berlin - http://i0.wp.com/lifeafter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/hitler_baptism.jpg

... that the invasive Mormon Church presence was in for a hard time. I was assigned to the Japan West/later Japan Fukuoka mission and did my time in the Okinawan cities of Naha and Oroku, then headed north to Miyazaki, Sasebo and my last stop of Hiroshima, where I worked as a zone leader).

As missionaries, we faced a helluva challenge trying to retain active native members. Specifically, priesthood-aged men who had the male-only "power and authority" to run the branches were typically in short supply.

Most of the Japanese who we saw join the Church were women (many of them elderly), and young people of MIA age. The youth liked the activities that were designed to draw them in, but they tended to drift into inactivity relatively quickly. Young families, with lots of children and packaged with a Mormon male head of household, were a rarity. The missionaries assigned to their given areas ended up providing the priesthood leadership to fill the gaps in the base and to run the branches. Members tended to latch on to their favorite missionaries and when those missionaries were transferred, some of the members became less active or "fell away" completely.

Adding to the problem, Japanese society is a generally homogeneous one ethnically, as well as in its cultural, familial and religious thinking and heritage. For the Japanese people to join an American-invented church led by a 14-year-old farm boy/backwoods folk-magic scam artist in training, living in the New York frontier whose successor ended up taking Mormonism's uprooted, freshly-brainwashed converts on a mass-march pioneer exodus into the salt flats of the intermountain American West just isn't the average Japanese cup of ocha (tea).

The Japanese people come from a background where there is enormous expectation and pressure to conform to the collective national will, as it defines what is good for the whole, not for the individual. Breaking from ancient family and national heritage and tradition in order to join a Western Hemisphere cult is pretty hard for them to swallow--and for their families and fellow citizens to stomach.

Expect increasing levels of Japanese Mormon inactivity and consolidation in the future.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2017 06:51PM by steve benson.

steve benson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adding to the problem, Japanese society is a
> generally homogeneous one ethnically, as well as
> in its cultural, familial and religious thinking
> and heritage. For the Japanese people to join
> an American-invented church led by a 14-year-old
> farm boy/backwoods folk-magic magician living in
> the New York frontier whose successor ended up
> taking Mormonism's uprooted, freshly-brainwashed
> converts on a mass-march pioneer exodus into the
> salt flats of the intermountain American West just
> isn't the average Japanese cup of ocha (tea).

One of the first phrases I learned when I worked for Fujitsu in Kawasaki for a year (because people were always saying it to me, the gaijin):

Deru kui ga utareru.

The peg that sticks out gets pounded down. Or...don't rock the boat. Don't stick out. Don't be different.

To them, it's not just a saying, it's how they live :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2017 10:21AM by ificouldhietokolob.

Tales to warm the cold apostate darkness...tiny candles lighting the world...so good to hear the message is getting out there....fairy tales can come true...yes it can happen to you ...when your cold of heart...gotta be the worst job in the world right now blowing hot air into a leaking balloon...explosive growth...naw looks like member diahrea...oh the temple thing..its about scrubbing the tithing squeaky clean and getting it into the right pockets...imo...clever though...you have to give the pricks that...north dakota temple...uh uh...ill bet the place is just buzzing