Members attended endowment sessions in foreign language. They could not understand…

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, JAHS said:

English is compulsory in Japanese schools from the third grade up until the end of high school, and then again through university. So I am sure they were able to understand enough English to make the covenants and understand generally what was being taught. 

This was back in 1965

[Calm]

Just now, Calm said:

This was back in 1965

Anyone joining the Church back then was likely very pro American though.

[Diamondhands69]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

English is compulsory in Japanese schools from the third grade up until the end of high school, and then again through university. So I am sure they were able to understand enough English to make the covenants and understand generally what was being taught. 

While it may be compulsory I’m calling nonsense on blanket assertion  that more than s very small percentage of Japanese have a working knowledge or basic understanding of English: 

“Yet despite this growth, studies estimate that less than 30 percent of Japanese speak English at any level at all. Less than 8 percent and possibly as little as 2 percent speak English fluently. For comparison, in Germany, roughly 60 percent of the population speaks English, and 16 percent of speakers say they are proficient.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/26/japan-doesnt-want-to-become-another-casualty-of-english/

My exposure to German speakers confirms the reference to them. As for the japanese.. no personal experience there. 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Diamondhands69 said:

While it may be compulsory I’m calling nonsense on blanket assertion  that more than s very small percentage of Japanese have a working knowledge or basic understanding of English: 

“Yet despite this growth, studies estimate that less than 30 percent of Japanese speak English at any level at all. Less than 8 percent and possibly as little as 2 percent speak English fluently. For comparison, in Germany, roughly 60 percent of the population speaks English, and 16 percent of speakers say they are proficient.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/26/japan-doesnt-want-to-become-another-casualty-of-english/

My exposure to German speakers confirms the reference to them. As for the japanese.. no personal experience there. 

You may be correct about the percentage of Japanese who are proficient in English (or, rather your source is). 

FWIW, my wife and I visited Prague over Christmas, and virtually everyone we spoke with had pretty good English. And nearly all the public signs were bilingual in Czech and English. Probably due to tourism. And I imagine that English proficiency isn't that strong outside major cities. 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Diamondhands69 said:

While it may be compulsory I’m calling nonsense on blanket assertion  that more than s very small percentage of Japanese have a working knowledge or basic understanding of English: 

“Yet despite this growth, studies estimate that less than 30 percent of Japanese speak English at any level at all. Less than 8 percent and possibly as little as 2 percent speak English fluently. For comparison, in Germany, roughly 60 percent of the population speaks English, and 16 percent of speakers say they are proficient.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/26/japan-doesnt-want-to-become-another-casualty-of-english/

My exposure to German speakers confirms the reference to them. As for the japanese.. no personal experience there. 

https://youtu.be/9UO5cXmVR4M?si=xTk6moDcZQaWQhGG

[Diamondhands69]

3 hours ago, Stargazer said:

You may be correct about the percentage of Japanese who are proficient in English (or, rather your source is). 

FWIW, my wife and I visited Prague over Christmas, and virtually everyone we spoke with had pretty good English. And nearly all the public signs were bilingual in Czech and English. Probably due to tourism. And I imagine that English proficiency isn't that strong outside major cities. 

What was their proficiency like in the late 40s and early 50s.? That’s the time period in question. 

[Navidad]

While I have no experience with the temple ceremonies, I perhaps can help a bit with an earlier comment on this thread wanting more information about the situation of converts and colonies here in Mexico:

1. Someone mentioned 4,000 Saints in the early 1900s. That was a number for the Anglo Mormons in the colonies. By 1908 or so, the number of Anglo colonists was at its height - around 4,000. In 1912, the number of Anglo Mormons resident in the colonies went down to around 400. Between that time and the 1930s more returned, but the population of Anglo Mormons here never again went above 1000 at the most. There are probably no more than 400 Anglo Mormons in the colonies today. There are thousands of descendants of the pre-revolution Anglo Mexican Mormons all over the United States. Two nights ago we had a large gathering of Lions Club volunteers from the US (around fifty or so) for dinner at our home. They were doing eye care here in Casas Grandes. One of the volunteer nurses had her badge on and her last name was Redd. I asked here if she were LDS. She looked surprised and said "yes." We talked about her ancestors from here at different times in the evening. I spoke to a Redd reunion here two years in a row.

 2. The early Anglo colonists here were from fourteen different countries at the very least. They were a polyglot. I know of no studies indicating how many were fluent or even conversational in English. The largest numbers came from the US, Scotland, and Ireland - so those probably were English conversant. Many came from Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe. Through the 1930s, many men and almost all women were not Spanish conversant.

3. About a year ago I was invited by a Mexican family to speak up in the mountains at the 100th anniversary of the first Mexican convert's baptism in northern Mexico. It was a family reunion especially for that purpose. That meant that from the Mexican Mormon perspective the first baptism of a mestizo convert in the north was in 1922. Interestingly, I was the only Anglo in attendance.

4. There are rumors and stories of some baptized converts in the mountains of southwest Chihuahua in the mid-1870s when the first "missionaries" - probably lost explorers went through the area looking for land. There is no record that I know of regarding what happened to them.

5. The Anglo colonists (those who came here to live) did no formal missionary work in Mexico until the 1930s. They were too busy trying to establish themselves and recovering from the revolution. Several of the early LDS colony missionaries were from the LeBaron family. They served south of Mexico City. As late as the early 1940s, all leaders of the church in Mexico were Anglo with various linguistic capabilities in Spanish. For example Orson Pratt Brown was the president of the Mexican branch in Colonia Dublan. There is evidence that was not a popular choice among the Mexican converts in that time and place. Of course, that was for a variety of reasons.

6. There were converts in central Mexico earlier than here among the colonists. Please don't confuse the colonists with the missionaries. Missionary work here in Mexico suffered during the 1930s and 1940s due to the Third Conventions conflicts.

7. Morelos, Hidalgo, and Puebla were the states that had the most early revolutionary-era Mexican converts. Recent research indicates that the Mexican Mormon converts tended to ally themselves with the Zapatistas, probably due to some Protestant influence among the Zapatista leaders. Converts fought in the Zapatista armies, who were often the dominant force in those states. We know some died in battle, some were hung, and others lived on as proud veterans and Zapatistas. In the mid-teens in that area, both the Villistas and Carrancistas fought in that area (especially) Puebla and Hidalgo as well. Mexican Mormon converts were known as Zapatista supporters and were "persecuted" for that whenever Villistas and Carrancistas were in the neighborhood. Some "martyr" stories have arisen from these episodes, but it is most likely that Mormon Zapatista sympathizers were killed for being Zapatistas, not for being Mormons. Mormons were rarely distinguished from Protestants in those areas in those years.

I hope some of this helps in the comments about Spanish speakers and specifically Mexicans in those early years. The Mexican Mormon community lost fully one-third of its membership in the late 1920s and 1930s. In the mid-1940s because of new church policies and attitudes, many came back into fellowship. Almost all of those who had been excommunicated had their excommunications reversed by President George Albert Smith. He was a great force for healing and reconciliation with the Mexican Mormon Church. Others, who never rejoined, formed what we today call fundamentalist communities that still thrive. Today there may be more (I have never counted) Anglo Mormon LeBaron adherents (in one or their several churches) in Mexico than Anglo LDS adherents.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Navidad

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

My wife and I were sealed in the Swiss Temple, it was French week. We wore headphones, listening in English, with the louder French endowment session made understanding even more difficult. It was years before I attended an English version, which happened in the London Temple. Upon returning stateside, our closet Temple was Washington D.C., where we spent a week. Now, I have been to Temples all over U.S., but those days are over. Now attending my own Temple in Atlanta, Georgia is very different, and often requires days of bed rest. 

[Maestrophil]

On 10/29/2023 at 3:51 AM, Stargazer said:

You may be correct about the percentage of Japanese who are proficient in English (or, rather your source is). 

FWIW, my wife and I visited Prague over Christmas, and virtually everyone we spoke with had pretty good English. And nearly all the public signs were bilingual in Czech and English. Probably due to tourism. And I imagine that English proficiency isn't that strong outside major cities. 

Note that the temple language is very different - I learned French as a child before I learned English, and I served a French-speaking mission, but if I had to translate the endowment on the fly, I would really struggle to find the vocabulary and express things efficiently - especially specific tokens and names

[InCognitus]

11 minutes ago, Maestrophil said:

Note that the temple language is very different - I learned French as a child before I learned English, and I served a French-speaking mission, but if I had to translate the endowment on the fly, I would really struggle to find the vocabulary and express things efficiently - especially specific tokens and names

I've noticed that recently with the translation of the veil ceremony from English into Spanish.  

[mfbukowski]

40 minutes ago, Maestrophil said:

Note that the temple language is very different - I learned French as a child before I learned English, and I served a French-speaking mission, but if I had to translate the endowment on the fly, I would really struggle to find the vocabulary and express things efficiently - especially specific tokens and names

Correct me if I am wrong but what we call "Endowment"- which we think of as a "great gift," in Spanish, is translated into "Investiture" or something like that.

Both are perfect descriptions, but seen from different viewpoints.

[Maestrophil]

19 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Correct me if I am wrong but what we call "Endowment"- which we think of as a "great gift," in Spanish, is translated into "Investiture" or something like that.

Both are perfect descriptions, but seen from different viewpoints.

Correct, and other wording can be tricky too -because translations should be based on intent and meaning in the temple more than other places, rather than literal word for word translation.