Acknowledgments, iii
Introduction, 3
CHAPTER ONE: The Charles Redd Center Ethnic LDS Oral History Project, 7
CHAPTER TWO: Membership in the LDS Church, 15
CHAPTER THREE: Asian Immigration to the United States, 33
CHAPTER FOUR: Culture, 47
CHAPTER FIVE: LDS Church and Views of Ethnic Congregations, 63
CHAPTER SIX: Ethnic Congregations—Case Studies, 73
CHAPTER SEVEN: Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethnic Congregations, 93
CHAPTER EIGHT: Relationships with European-Americans, 111
Summary, 129
Appendices:
Oral History Interview Questions,133
Asian-American Oral Histories Coding Form, 135
LDS Asian-American Oral History Interviews, 137
Index, 141

"Asian-American" is a deceptively unified term that covers a staggering variety of countries, languages, customs, and experiences, ranging from those of East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) to Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Singapore). Some have been traditional enemies. In the United States, their experiences continue to be distinctive from each other even among generations. The newcomers' children mix American and family cultures, resulting in an inventive blend that changes with each generation. As a result, each Asian-American family comprises several stages of assimilation. Some Japanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans have lived in the States for generations. Vietnamese-Americans and Cambodian-Americans are more recent refugees from war-torn countries and are just starting a second generation in America.

The U. S. government and many European-Americans, however, frequently do not recognize the differences in Asian groups. Until the 1980 census, Asians and Polynesians were reported as one group. Some European Americans mistake Japanese as Chinese. According to Sucheng Chan, a Chinese American professor of Asian-American Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, "For the most part, the host society has treated all alike, regardless of what differences might have existed in their cultures, religions, and languages, or in the status of their homelands in the family of nations.1 Many consider Asian-Americans the "model minority" because they do well in school and seem to fit into the society. But whether they are recent immigrants or third- or fourth-generation citizens, Asian-Americans often experience prejudice and discrimination. Overcoming these obstacles often takes a joint effort of Asian-American groups because each is too small to effectively protest alone.2

Some scholars explain other logical reasons to associate all Asian-Americans. While there are major differences among Asian cultures, there are similarities that separate them from European-Americans as a group. For example, Asians focus more on group and not individual achievement.

Other common characteristics include respect for authority, especially the elderly, emphasis on education, and the importance of family obligations.3 Immigrants also face the same kinds of difficulties as other groups, such as loyalty between the old and new culture, conflicts between the immigrant and U.S.-born generations, and idealized views of American life that often lead to disappointment.4

A 1990 Catholic study that looked at the Asian "presence" in the United States straddled the challenging gap of simultaneously finding enough commonalities to make meaningful generalizations and recognizing their significant diversity. In it, Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor of New York asked European Americans to accept the Asian immigrants who came with "a richness of traditions from backgrounds very different from most of us." He pleaded for understanding to allow "their faith [to] ... come out of the traditions which they value strongly" and to teach the "meaning of the universality of our faith."5 The Catholic researchers concluded, "Asians should not perceive the church as an 'Americanizing agency,' but as the sign and instrument of intimate union with God and with all people regardless of their ethnic, cultural and economic conditions."6 But what is the best way to achieve that goal? The study described both the advantages and challenges of integrated and ethnic parishes in addressing the question of where Asian-American Catholics should worship.7

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) has experienced the same concerns. Like the government, other religions, and many European-Americans, LDS church leaders and members often consider all Asian-Americans as one group. While the church has organized separate language and country branches from time to time, it has usually encouraged geographical congregations that are supposed to serve all within its boundaries irrespective of differences. When it has sponsored Asian branches and wards, usually it has expected everyone of Asian interest or ethnicity to attend. The decision to combine several ethnic and nationality groups into one congregation has been based on a practical consideration— that there were not enough people from one language or ethnic group to sponsor a separate group—but many European-American Mormon leaders also fail to recognize the differences between the groups.

How do Asian-American Mormons feel about these combinations? How do they perceive their relationships with European-American Mormons? How do they describe their lives in the United States as they mediate triple identities—ethnic, Mormon, and American? Those are among the questions this monograph attempts to answer. It is based on 108 oral history interviews conducted in English during 1994 and 1995 with Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Thai, Laotian, and Korean Mormons. Eighty-two lived in Utah at the time they were interviewed. Interviewers talked to eighteen in California, four in British Columbia, and four in Virginia. Nearly all attended the LDS church regularly, most (84 out of 102 or 82.4 percent) in an ethnic congregation. While it would be interesting to sample those who no longer attend the LDS church, finding them is very difficult and they are not always willing to talk about their experiences. However, the interviewees recognized and discussed both positive and negative experiences.

I have chosen to discuss all the Asian ethnic groups together for many of the same reasons that the LDS church leaders have created Asian congregations in the United States. First, the Redd Center does not have enough oral histories with any one Asian group to study each separately. Second, since the groups are forced to interact with each other in the LDS church congregations, the interviewees also needed to deal with the complexities of their relationships with other Asian-Americans. Finally, as I read the interviews, I found that despite diverse backgrounds, some of the same views came up repeatedly. The Asian and Asian-American interviewees seem to have the same successes and challenges no matter what country they come from. Other researchers might find subtle differences in the interviews that I missed.

The chapters that follow look at various aspects of these interviewees' lives. Chapter 1 describes the LDS Asian-American Oral History Project and introduces the interviewers and interviewees. Chapter 2 talks about their conversion to the LDS church. Chapter 3 deals with immigration. Chapter 4 looks at the strategies by which the interviewees preserve their native cultures in the United States. Chapter 5 explores the LDS church's history of working with Asian-Americans. Chapter 6 presents some case studies of Asian wards and branches. Chapter 7 summarizes some of the strengths and weaknesses the interviewees see in foreign language congregations. Chapter 8 analyzes the relationships between the interviewees and European-Americans, especially Mormons. The final chapter summarizes the experiences of the Asian-American Mormon interviewees.
_______________
NOTES.

1. Sucheng Chan, Asian-Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), xiii.
2. Pyong Gap Mi, "An Overview of Asian-Americans," Asian-Americans: Contemporary Trends and Issues, edited by Pyong Gap Mm (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1995), 32.
3. Ibid., 38.
4. Marjorie H. Li and Peter Li, Understanding Asian-Americans: A Curriculum Resource Guide (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1990), 1.
5. Suzanne E. Hall, et al., A Catholic Response to the Asian Presence (Washington, D. C.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1990), v.
6. Ibid., 88.
7. Ibid., 94-95.

Over the years, LDS Church policy toward ethnic congregations in the United States has varied. Sometimes the Church encouraged the formation of language wards and branches where members could hold meetings in their native tongues. Other times such specialized wards have been disbanded. These plans operated from mutually exclusive premises. Both met some needs of ethnic members and failed to meet others. Integration into multi-cultural, multi-lingual units was based on the ideal—and idealized—philosophy that gospel unity produces social unity. As Paul H. Dunn, a member of the First Quorum of Seventy explained at the rededication of a chapel in Oakland in 1988, "The color of skin, the culture we represent, the interests we have are all quite secondary to the concept of a great eternal family."1

But the contrasting philosophy of ethnic independence recognized language disabilities. As John H. Groberg, the LDS area president in southern California in 1992, explained, "Our prime role. . .is not to teach people English or how to become American. . . . We declare Christ, not English. Our mission is not limited to culture."2

These concerns are not unique to Mormons. The Roman Catholic Church, another universal church, first formed ethnic parishes for new immigrants to the United States during the nineteenth century. According to historian Jay Dolan, the parish was "a reference point. . . .It helped them cope with life in the emerging metropolis or the small town." In the twentieth century, the Catholic Church has put more emphasis on integrated parishes.3

Still, the idea of ethnic parishes did not disappear. A 1990 study showed that Asian-American Catholics struggle to meet the needs of new immigrants while preserving the integrated "territorial" parish. As a result, the church allowed the establishment of "personal parishes. . .based upon rite, language, [or] the nationality of the Christian faithful within some territory." Other accepted options included "culturally pluralistic" parishes where several ethnic groups held masses in their native languages or ethnic
centers to help with acculturation. Whatever the choice, the Catholic report encouraged the parish to welcome Asian members and share activities. One Chinese woman explained that was not happening in the Catholic Church, and many Catholics found Protestant churches more welcoming.4

While the Mormon Church has not conducted a similar study, the frequently changing philosophy toward ethnic groups produces comparable results. In the 1950s, church leaders realized that they did not have to travel to foreign countries to find non-Mormons. The Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission, along with other ethnic missions in Utah, worked with non-Mormons who did not speak English. This mission originated from a suggestion by Golden Buchanan who served on several church committees. While taking a train on Sundays, he saw Japanese people going to a Japanese church and thought that the Church could teach these people if they had Japanese-speaking missionaries. Buchanan discussed the idea with Apostle Spencer W. Kimball, who asked him to research the possibilities of calling foreign language missionaries to work with non-Mormons in the Salt Lake valley. In 1952, while Buchanan was serving as president of the Southwest Indian Mission, the church leaders organized the Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission.5

Ralph Williams Evans, a European-American and a former president of the Southwest Indian Mission, became the first president. The mission worked directly with the twenty-seven stakes in the Salt Lake valley, asking stake presidents to select part-time missionaries with language abilities. According to church leaders, there were 5,000 ethnic members in the valley. While Mexicans were the largest group (1,144), mission leaders thought there were 474 Japanese and 30 Chinese. Through the mission's efforts, the leaders hoped to double the number of ethnic members in the area. Some estimated there were 1,000 Japanese families in the Salt Lake valley.6

L. Sidney Shreeve, another European-American, was a president of the regional mission from 1956 to 1959. Unlike Evans, he chose ethnic counselors: Ray Pawiki, a Hopi, and Gerald Okabe, a Japanese-American from Hawaii. Missionaries spoke Spanish, Navajo, Japanese, German, Dutch, Portuguese, French, Norwegian, and Italian. In an oral history interview, Shreeve recalled many Spanish and Japanese baptisms. "It was very exciting work. We enjoyed it very much. We had a regular little United Nations, only we operated in harmony and toward one common goal—the building of the Lord's Kingdom here on earth."7

In 1959 Golden Buchanan became the president of the regional mission, a position he held until 1966. His previous position had been that people who understood English should be in geographical wards, but he changed his mind when he noticed how comfortable the people were with others of their own nationality. He wondered why, if there could be English-language wards in Germany and Mexico, there should not be language branches in Utah to solve problems with transportation, language, and fellowshipping in the geographical wards.8

The Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission prompted the re-creation of ethnic congregations. Meetings in languages other than English were not new in Utah. In 1849 Welsh immigrants met as a group in Salt Lake City, although some of their activities were in English. In 1852 Danish and German immigrants held meetings in their native languages. It is not clear whether these meetings were officially church sanctioned, but later organizations were. For example, in 1860 Brigham Young called Karl G. Maeser to preside over the German meetings. In 1877 all the non-English branches became part of the Salt Lake Stake.9 Ethnic congregations continued in Salt Lake until World War I, and again until World War II when they were all shut down except for the Mexican branch in Salt Lake City.10

The Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission was the motivation for reorganizing foreign language Sunday Schools during the 1950s. Then in 1962 and 1963, Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Petersen, another apostle, organized a Japanese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, a second Spanish (Cumorah), and two Native American branches. There were also French, Mandarin, and Cantonese Sunday Schools. Each branch became part of an organized stake.11

In 1963 all the branches held a conference. According to Kimball, they "made spectacular reports of good feelings, great activity, much progress, and a great satisfaction." The stake presidents in charge of the branches also praised their activities.12

Kimball continued to strongly support the branches and visited them whenever he did not have out-of-town church business. For example, on July 14, 1963, he attended the Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch meetings and spoke through interpreters. He recalled, "These are branches that I helped to organize several months ago, and I feel very happy in their accomplishments and the strength of these new units. It serves a very important purpose to give to the language groups or those not understanding English, a chance to worship here in Salt Lake in their own tongue and they are deeply appreciative of it." He continued that the branches were mainly attended by adults since the children spoke English and went to geographical wards.13

In 1967 Kimball met again with the minority branches, expressing pleasure in the fact that members spoke twenty languages, including four or five Native American dialects. The branches were having remarkable success: 90 percent home teaching, 85 percent attendance at sacrament meetings, 69 percent attendance at priesthood meetings, 68 percent at Sunday School meetings, and 62 percent at Relief Society meetings. In addition, there had been 42 baptisms and 33 reactivated members. The German Branch averaged 125 to 150 percent attendance, thanks to the attendance of investigators and those with a fondness for the German culture and language.14

Mission President Lyman Shreeve also praised the branches. He explained they "gave us a corps of people to work with, and then later after they were well indoctrinated in Church principles and firm in the faith, they could be integrated into the regular wards and branches if they wanted to. But while they were going through this period either of rehabilitation and returning to the Church or becoming converted to the Church, it always worked better to have them in a little group that we could control and work with." The minority members, often ignored in the geographical wards, could "blossom" in the ethnic branches.15

Initially many of the branch leaders, especially for the smaller congregations, were European Americans assigned to serve in the branch and auxiliary presidencies. These long-time members understood church organization and helped the branches conform to accepted procedures. In addition, some branches did not have enough ordained priesthood holders to fill the positions. Over the years, branch members developed leadership skills and eventually could serve in the branch presidencies and auxiliary positions. Only the Chinese branch did not have enough priesthood leaders to staff all the positions requiring ordained men and had to bring in outsiders.16

While these branches helped the ethnic members feel at home in the Church, it meant a separation and different treatment from their neighbors and other Mormons. Apostles disagreed whether separate language congregations or integrated wards best met the needs of all members. The apparent uneasiness with a mixed policy kept the see-saw going back and forth in an effort to find a one-policy-fits-all solution.

The existence of separate missions to proselyte non-members in Utah and other parts of the United States raised the same questions. Some members of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball's Indian and Minority Group Committee, composed of other apostles and some church members, felt that separate branches encouraged segregation. They argued that people from different cultures needed to meet and know each other as individuals, and therefore that integrated congregations were best. Others felt integrated wards had a sorry record of keeping ethnic minorities fully involved and growing.17

Following established procedure, Kimball rarely mentioned what happened in Council of Twelve meetings in his journal. However, he broke with that tradition on February 3, 1966, to express his deep misgivings about attempts to eliminate the ethnic branches and the language missions. He wrote: "Among others was the matter of the possible integration of the minority group branches with the Anglo branches and the possible combination. . . of the missions, doing away with the Spanish-speaking missions in the United States. . . . I vigorously protested and while several of the brethren seemed to feel the other way would be better, I was so vigorous in my protestation that the President [sic] did not take a vote on it but asked us to return with the matter next week." He continued, "While it would be easier, more adaptable to administration, I feel sure we would lose ground and many of our members and cease to grow as fast as we have done."18

Despite Kimball's resistance, administrative changes were made in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the ethnic congregations in Salt Lake City were active members of stakes and stake missionaries could talk to non-members, the Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission was closed in 1967. While the Salt Lake ethnic branches continued to operate, the General Authorities stopped organizing new ethnic congregations and even disbanded some. In a 1972 letter to all stakes, wards, and branches, the general leaders asked all local leaders and members to be conscious of "racial, language, or cultural groups." Where there were language barriers, the congregations should organize special classes. If there were sufficient need, a stake could ask for permission to organize a branch, but its boundaries had to match those of the stake. Some stake leaders, including those in Oakland, California, thought that the letter was asking them to dissolve their ethnic congregations and eliminated them. Others, including the leaders in the Los Angeles Stake, interpreted the letter as authorization to create language branches, but when stake leaders requested permission to do so in the 1970s the General Authorities refused.19

However, the pendulum swung back. By 1977, the General Authorities realized they were not meeting all the needs of ethnic members. Small branches, especially those on Indian reservations, could not do full staffing. In response, General Authorities approved a Basic Unit plan which identified "essential" church programs for small congregations. Stakes used this simplified plan to set up ethnic branches. In explaining the need for these units, Spencer W. Kimball, then Church President [sic], told a Regional Representative seminar in 1980, "Many challenges face all of us as we fellowship and teach the gospel to the cultural and minority groups living in our midst. . . .When special attention of some kind is not provided for these people, we lose them."20

The Salt Lake Valley Regional Mission had included several branches for Asian and Asian-American members. During the 1950s, the Japanese group was especially active. After the regional mission's organization in 1952, the Church News proudly announced in 1954 that "an eight-course Japanese dinner recently marked the inauguration" of the missionary efforts with Japanese people. Six Japanese-Americans had already been baptized, and one recent convert was translating at cottage meetings (group gatherings for non-Mormons to learn the church teachings).21

To serve these members, the mission first organized a Japanese Sunday School, Dai-Ichi. Historical records are often incomplete for wards and branches during this period, but a few minutes have survived for the DaiIchi Sunday School and Branch. In 1952 a secretary kept track of who taught classes and gave talks, recording the names in English and Japanese.22 It also sponsored social and devotional activities. The group started holding Mutual activities in October 1955, averaging thirty-five members and investigators each week. That year Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith gave a Christmas talk.23 The next year the mission assigned fifteen missionaries to the Sunday School. Most had served on missions in Hawaii or Japan. They approached nonmembers by offering classes in leather craft, Japanese gardening, and English tutoring. As a result of their efforts, an average of forty-five people attended Sunday School each week.24

The Sunday School continued to grow, and on April 10, 1962, Spencer W. Kimball and Mark E. Petersen organized a branch. Members sustained Ralph Noboru Shino as the presiding elder. The first sacrament meeting was Sunday, April 15, 1962, in the regional mission offices. Two weeks later members met in the Salt Lake Nineteenth Ward Chapel. For the first year the branch was part of the Salt Lake Stake; in 1963 Church leaders transferred it to the Liberty Stake.

The Dai-Ichi Branch sponsored fund raising activities as other LDS congregations did in the 1960s. For example, in 1963 the branch sold soap as a welfare project. But there were cultural twists. The branch Relief Society and other members catered sukiyaki and teriyaki chicken dinners to church and community groups. Each year the branch held a fund raising dinner and invited the community—LDS and non-LDS. On April 10, 1963, 325 people paid $2.50 per ticket to sample Japanese specialities. Mormons from throughout the Salt Lake valley came. On April 27, 1968, 450 to 500 people attended. This dinner was still being held in 1997.

The branch also sponsored Halloween and Christmas parties, an annual campout at Bear Lake, and beginning in 1964 a New Year's dinner. The manuscript history explained, "By tradition, New Year's marks a period of special celebration and festivity for the Japanese, and we, therefore, have adopted this tradition of holding an annual potluck." A month later the branch members completed a large wooden Toni (a Shinto gateway) and installed it as an entrance way into the cultural hall.

The Relief Society sisters heard lessons from two teachers, one speaking in English and one in Japanese. Secretaries usually wrote in English, but sometimes they kept the minutes in Japanese. In 1986 the branch published a newsletter/sacrament meeting bulletin listing speakers, ward activities, and special articles in both English and Japanese.

Branch members provided a bridge between non-LDS Japanese people living in Salt Lake City and LDS citizens of Japan and other Japanese-American Mormons. For example, at the first fund-raising dinner in 1963, members of the Salt Lake Buddhist Women's Association provided much of the entertainment. In 1969 the branch loaned its Toni to the Japanese community for a Pioneer Day parade in Salt Lake City. For other dinners, Japanese students from Brigham Young University provided the entertainment. In 1970 branch members staffed the Salt Lake Temple so that 371 saints from the Japan Mission and Tokyo Stake could attend the temple in their native language.

The branch members also helped connect Japanese Mormons and other Latter-day Saints. Stake leaders had branch members form a choir for stake conference. In 1965 branch members provided a potluck between sessions of the stake conference, dressed in traditional attire at the stake leaders request. Members of the stake and other LDS members from Salt Lake attended the budget dinners and enjoyed Japanese food.

The Dai-Ichi Branch met the needs of its members in many ways including providing special programs and language classes. Another purpose, according to the manuscript history, was to encourage courtship between young people of Japanese ancestry. In 1966 the history proudly recorded four temple marriages among its members: "This is especially noteworthy as one of the basic purposes for organization of our branch was that church members of Japanese heritage would thereby have opportunity to meet and marry one of their own church and racial background. We feel very gratified that this purpose is also being realized."25 The Dai-Ichi branch is still (1998) operating in Salt Lake City.

Other missions, Sunday Schools, and branches also served Asian-Americans during the 1950s. In 1951 church leaders created a Chinese Mission in the San Francisco area. Mission president Hilton A. Robertson and the missionaries assigned to work in Chinatown also started a Sunday School, and in 1953 thirty people other than the missionaries were attending. But, as Robertson explained, "Pioneering at its best is very difficult and discouraging. Our work here has been doubly so for we have not only been pioneering a new mission, but also working among a people who have not known Christianity." The missionaries baptized only six people in two years. "We have no literature written in the Chinese language except the Bible. . . . Though we have done most of our work in Chinatown in English, there are many who do not understand English as well as their mother tongue." In February 1953 the San Francisco Stake took over the missionary work in Chinatown.26

A month later a recent Chinese convert, eighteen-year-old Betty Lim, spoke at the San Francisco Stake conference. Her family had immigrated when she was three. Though she was not looking for a religion when the missionaries came to her home, she was impressed with their message. She praised the Chinese Sunday School and the role it had played in her conversion.27

In February 1958 Church leaders organized a Chinese-Polynesian Branch from the Bay Ward, an unusual combination which followed the Census Bureau pattern of linking Asians and Polynesians. This branch, which operated for only a year and a half, represented Northern California in the all-Church volleyball tournament in June 1958. In September 1958, the branch was split to create a Chinese Sunday School and a Polynesian Branch. Although it was "a sad day in the brief history of the branch," the new organizations "were duly established in compliance with instructions from the First Presidency."28

The regional missions have been discontinued, but Mormon missionaries have continued to teach ethnic members in the United States, often in their native languages. In some areas, the Church provides opportunities for these converts as well as lifetime members and immigrants to worship in their native languages. The next chapter describes some of these Asian foreign language branches in the United States.
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NOTES.

1. Jessie L. Embry, "Ethnic Groups in the LDS Church," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 25 (Winter 1992): 84.
2. Giles H. Florence, Jr., "City of Angels," Ensign 22 (September 1992): 36.
3. Jay P. Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1985), 164, 207-8, 197, 21, 44.
4. Suzanne E. Hall, et al., A Catholic Response to the Asian Presence (Washington D. C.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1990), xi-xii, 94-95.
5. Golden Buchanan Oral History, interviewed by William G. Hartley, July 28, 1975, 5:65, LDS Church Archives, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. (Hereinafter cited as LDS Church Archives.)
6. S. Perry Lee, "Salt Lake Valley Mission Created," Church News, September 27, 1952, 3; "S. L. Valley Regional Mission Shows Gains," ibid., January 7, 1956, 8.
7. Lyman Sidney and Afton K. Shreeve Oral History, interviewed by Gordon Irving, 1974-1975, 177-178, LDS Church Archives.
8. Buchanan, Oral History, 1975, 5:7-8, 65, 73, 118.
9. Richard L. Jensen, "Mother Tongue: Use of Non-English Languages in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the United States, 1850-1983," New Views of Mormon History: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, eds. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1987), 276-77.
10. Ibid., 277-81.
11. "Japanese, Indian Branches Formed in Salt Lake City," Church News, April 21, 1962, 7; "Leaders Named for Danish LDS Unit," ibid., April 28, 1962, 11; Jensen, Mother Tongue, 287-88.
12. Spencer W. Kimball, Journal, September 19, 1963, in private possession. Used by permission.
13. Ibid., July 14, 1963.
14. Ibid., February 22, 1967.
15. Shreeve, Oral History, 1974-1975, 180-181.
16. Buchanan, Oral History, 1975, 5:138-139.
17. Ibid., 5:24.
18. Kimball Journal, February 3, 1966.
19. Robert Larsen and Sharlyn H. Larsen, "Refugee Converts: One Stake's Experience," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20 (Fall 1987): 55; Chad M. Orton, More Faith than Fear: The Los Angeles Stake Story (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987), 262-63.
20. "Aid Minorities, President Kimball Asks Leaders," Church News, October 11, 1980, 4.
21. "Missionaries Baptize Six Japanese," ibid., July 17, 1954, 5.
22. Dai-Ichi Branch, Minutes, 1952, LDS Church Archives.
23. "Pres. Smith Will Talk to Japanese," Church News; December 17, 1955, 2.
24. "S. L. Valley Regional Mission Shows Gains," ibid., January 7, 1956, 1, 8.
25. Dai-Ichi Branch, Manuscript History and Minutes, 1952-1986, LDS Church Archives.
26. W. Keith Warner, "S. F. Takes Over Assignment," Church News, February 7, 1953, 6.
27. "Betty Lim Tells Why She Became Member of the Church," ibid., May 9, 1953, 6.
28. Chinese-Polynesian Branch Manuscript History, LDS Church Archives.