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Tomizo And Tokujiro: The First Japanese Mormons, Shinji Takagi

BYU Studies Quarterly

In August 1901, Heber J. Grant and his companions arrived in Japan to open the first permanent mission in Asia and begin their difficult proselyting labors among the Japanese. It took them almost seven long months to claim the first fruit of their labors. On March 8, 1902, on the shore of Omori in Tokyo Bay, Hajime Nakazawa, a professed Shinto priest, was baptized, confirmed, and ordained an elder. This event was symbolic indeed. For one thing, Nakazawa was presumably affiliated with a religious sect whose roots went back to the ancient indigenous religion of Japan. For another, more interestingly, …