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While speaking to members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gathered in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1843, the Prophet Joseph Smith said, “Don’t let a single corner of the earth go without a mission.”[1] Then on August 28–29, 1852, President Brigham Young and his counselors in the First Presidency held a special conference in the newly completed Salt Lake Tabernacle to call missionaries to travel to the far reaches of the world, including the isles of the Pacific and Asia. President Heber C. Kimball said they were gathered for this special conference because “there are elders to be selected to go to the nations of the earth. . . . There will probably be elders chosen to go to the four quarters of the globe to transact business, [and] preach the Gospel.”[2] Several of these men were selected to preach the gospel in the Pacific and Asia, and some were joined by their wives and children. Thereafter, other pioneer women sought to help establish The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their community and country despite significant trials and challenges. The story of these early pioneer women, as well as modern-day pioneer sisters, provides a beautiful tapestry of faith and sacrifice that has impacted the work of salvation since the early years of the Restoration in the Pacific and Asia.

The history of The Church of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Pacific and Asia includes a vast array of stories and experiences spread across a diverse spectrum of peoples and cultures. However, this history is often focused on or told from the perspective or voices of the first missionary elders, branch presidents, bishops, district or stake presidents, and mission and temple presidents. The other half of this important history includes mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters. The experiences of the first sister missionaries, Relief Society or Primary presidents, companions to the mission presidents, temple matrons, and other female leaders are essential to provide a more complete picture of this great work of faith and sacrifice among the people in the Pacific and Asia.

This volume is a humble attempt to begin the monumental task of bringing forth and highlighting the voices of Latter-day Saint women in the Pacific and Asia. Their stories of faith, their sacrifices and experiences, and their important contributions to the establishment of the Church are immense and transcend across the multiplicity of nations, kindreds, tongues, and people in this region. There are countless stories from these faithful Latter-day Saint women that need to be gathered, written, told, shared, and preserved.

The chapters in this book include “real-life situations involving real people”[3] as the restored gospel entered the various parts of Asia and the Pacific. The first chapters consider the voices in a general and global context through the experiences of Tongan sisters and Sister Chieko N. Okazaki. The chapters from the Pacific include the first sister missionaries in Tubuai and other women in the islands of Hawai‘i, the first female principal for the Church school in Tonga, and other faithful women in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Guam, and Micronesia. The chapters from Asia examine the experience of faithful women in Japan, the first Relief Society president in Korea, the impact of Helen Foster Snow in China, Chinese temple matrons in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, the translator of the Book of Mormon in Thailand, women leaders in Mongolia, and the faith of Josephina Villanueva alongside the growth of the Church in the Philippines.

This volume begins this task by providing selections of papers presented at the 2023 Church History in the Pacific and Asia Conference with the theme “Voices of Latter-day Saint Women in the Pacific and Asia.” It was held in March 2023 at the Brigham Young University–Hawaii campus in Lā’ie, Hawai‘i. However, there are also a couple chapters and sections in this volume that were compiled independent of this conference, which added important stories from pioneer women to this volume. From academic historians to local storytellers, from broad general historical accounts to deeply personal individual experiences, the variety of styles used to tell the story of these Latter-day Saint women mirrors the various cultures and people in the Pacific and Asia. While hundreds of attendees and dozens of presenters met at this conference, to teach and learn from the voices of Latter-day Saint women in the Pacific and Asia, our hope is that others throughout the world may come to learn from the legacy of these faithful pioneer women. Their stories of faith and sacrifice, which are often overlooked (a tribute to their humble and quiet demeanor and desire to contribute without calling attention to themselves), are brought to light and highlighted in this unique and multicultural volume. We hope that those who read the stories and presentations featured in this collection will be inspired to collect, preserve, and share additional stories, while expanding and enlarging the voices of Latter-day Saint women in the Pacific and Asia and throughout the world.

Po Nien (Felipe) Chou, ‘Alisi K. Langi, and Petra M. W. S. Chou

Editors

Notes

[1] Joseph Smith, journal, April 19, 1843, in Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson, eds., Journals, Volume 2: December 1841–April 1843, vol. 2 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011), 370.

[2] See “Minutes of the General Conference . . . ,” Deseret News, October 16, 1852.

[3] See Explanatory Introduction to the Doctrine and Covenants.