{"id":336,"date":"2012-12-17T09:12:53","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T09:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=336"},"modified":"2012-12-17T09:12:53","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T09:12:53","slug":"the-tokyo-mormon-temple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=336","title":{"rendered":"The Tokyo Mormon Temple"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The leafy neighbourhood of Azabu is one of Tokyo&#8217;s most upscale residential districts, home to many embassies and expensive apartment blocks. It is also the site of Tokyo&#8217;s Mormon temple, or Japan&#8217;s Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Letter-Day Saints as it is formally known. It is an imposing and slightly surreal sight.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon02.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-338 alignnone\" title=\"mormon02\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon02-580x433.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"433\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon02-580x433.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon02.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><!--more--><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The temple was the first LDS temple in Asia and was built on the site of a former mission home. It sits on a relatively small site with a size of less than an acre. It is 54 meters high and shares some features that can also be seen in other <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Temple_architecture_(Latter-day_Saints)\">Mormon temples<\/a>, such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Angel_Moroni\">Angel Moroni statue<\/a> at the top.<\/p>\n<p>The Mormon Church in Japan is rather small, with little over 100,000 followers. The mission&#8217;s biggest &#8220;successes&#8221; occurred in the 1970s, when one of the faith&#8217;s local leaders named Delbert Groberg employed a more <a href=\"http:\/\/elderkikuchi.blogspot.jp\/2010\/05\/heading-another-heading-row-1-cell-1.html\">aggressive proselytising approach<\/a>\u00a0 &#8211; especially singling out younger Japanese in his <span style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\">South<\/span> Tokyo Mission.<\/p>\n<p>The growth seems to have ebbed since and many people now predict the faith to shrink in size again. The availability of the internet and a general precaution with sects seem to make people wary of signing up to such marginal faiths in Japan. Despite this, another temple opened in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fukuoka_Japan_Temple\">Fukuoka<\/a>\u00a0in 2000 while another one is under construction in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sapporo_Japan_Temple\">Sapporo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For us in Tokyo, the LDS temple will remain a monument to the Mormons&#8217; ambitions in Japan during the time when it was built during the late 1970s.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon01.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-339 alignnone\" title=\"mormon01\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon01-580x776.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon01-580x776.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon01.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon03.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-337\" title=\"mormon03\" src=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon03-580x776.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon03-580x776.jpg 580w, https:\/\/benbansal.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/mormon03.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The leafy neighbourhood of Azabu is one of Tokyo&#8217;s most upscale residential districts, home to many embassies and expensive apartment blocks. It is also the site of Tokyo&#8217;s Mormon temple, or Japan&#8217;s Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/?p=336\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-japan","category-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benbansal.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}