Yoshihiko Kikuchi

Yoshihiko Kikuchi (菊地良彦, Kikuchi Yoshihiko, born 25 July 1941 in Japan) has been a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) since 1977, and was the first native Asian to be called as a general authority of the LDS Church.[1][2]

Yoshihiko Kikuchi
First Quorum of the Seventy
1 October 1977 (1977-10-01) – 1 October 2011 (2011-10-01)
Called bySpencer W. Kimball
End reasonGranted general authority emeritus status
Emeritus General Authority
1 October 2011 (2011-10-01)
Called byThomas S. Monson
Personal details
Born (1941-07-25) 25 July 1941

Kikuchi was born on the island of Hokkaido. His father served in the military and was killed by American bombing. Kikuchi joined the LDS Church in the late 1950s.

As a young man, Kikuchi served as a building missionary for the LDS Church.[3]

After completing his education, he worked for a cookware firm. Later, he worked as the national sales manager for an international company, and eventually operated his own export import company.

During this time, Kikuchi was also continuing to serve in the LDS Church, including as president of one of the church's branches in Tokyo. When the Tokyo Stake, the first formed anywhere in Asia was organized, Kikuchi was called as first counselor in the stake presidency.[4] He was later called as the president of the Tokyo Stake. In 1977, Kikuchi was called into full-time church service as a general authority. He became a seventy and member of the First Quorum of the Seventy at the church's October 1977 general conference.[1]

After becoming a general authority, Kikuchi was assigned to preside over the affairs of the church in Japan.[5] As area supervisor from 1978 to 1982, Kikuchi promoted rapid proselytizing of local adult converts, especially through baptism, and published graphs in the official Area News that tracked and compared the number of baptisms in each mission. However, as scholar Jiro Numano has noted, these "hasty baptisms" had negative effects on the church, which encountered difficulty integrating large numbers of newly-baptized converts unschooled in doctrine and practice, and on missionaries, who had to deal with apparently contradictory directions from different church leaders about how and whom to baptize.[6]

From 1987 to 1989, Kikuchi served as president of the church's Hawaii Honolulu Mission.[7] In 1987, Kikuchi was a keynote speaker at the first major African-American family history conference sponsored by the LDS Church.[8] From 1994 to 1997, he served as president of the Tokyo Japan Temple. On October 1, 2011, Kikuchi was released from the First Quorum of the Seventy and designated as an emeritus general authority.[9]

Kikuchi has been married to Toshiko Koshiya since 1964 and they are the parents of four children.

Notes
  1. Weaver, Sarah (22 August 2016). "President Nelson dedicates Sapporo Japan Temple". Deseret News. Retrieved 23 October 2018.
  2. Adney Y. Komatsu was the first general authority of East Asian descent, but was born and raised in the United States.
  3. Reid L. Neilson and Van C. Gessel. Taking the Gospel to the Japanese: 1901 to 2001. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2006) p. 327.
  4. Reid L. Neilson and Vac C. Gessel. Taking the Gospel to the Japanese. Provo: Brigham Young University Press, p. 352
  5. Hoffman, John Patrick (2007). Japanese Saints: Mormons in the Land of the Rising Sun. Lexington Books. p. 34. ISBN 9780739116890.
  6. Numano, Jiro (2010). "Hasty Baptisms in Japan: The Early 1980s in the LDS Church". Journal of Mormon History. 36 (4): 18–40. JSTOR 23291122.
  7. R. Lanier Britsch, Moramona: The Mormons in Hawai'I La,ie, Hawai'i: The Jonathan Nepela Center for Hawai'ian and Pacific Studies, 2018. p. 465
  8. [Armaund L. Mauss. All Abraham's Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Ethnicity (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003) p. 245. Also see Bringhurst and Smith Black and Mormon, p. 87]
  9. "Honorable releases given to 12 brethren". Church News. Deseret News Publishing Company. 1 October 2011. Retrieved 1 October 2011.

References
  • Glenn N. Powe. "Yoshihiko Kikuchi" in Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, Arnold K,. Garr, et al., ed. p. 606.
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