LAIE, HAWAII
The completion of any major building or project in the islands generally results in a significant celebration; but when the king and queen of Tonga — His Majesty King Tupou VI and Her Majesty Queen Nanasipau’u — accepted the invitation to attend the “grand reopening” of the Polynesian Cultural Center’s recently renovated Tongan Village on June 10-11, the Polynesian protocol rose to new levels.
Among those welcoming the royal couple were: Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Ruth L. Renlund; Elder O. Vincent Haleck, a General Authority Seventy and first counselor in the Pacific Area presidency; Elder ‘Aisake Tukuafu, Area Seventy for Tonga; Elder Aley K. Auna Jr., Area Seventy for Hawaii, and their wives, Peggy Ann Haleck, Lose Tukuafu and Danelle Auna. Elder Renlund addressed the royal couple during a special banquet on June 10.
A large entourage also accompanied the king, including his majesty’s talking chief, the Hon. Motu’apuaka; the recently appointed minister of tourism and infrastructure, the Hon. Semisi Sika, who is a 1994 BYU–Hawaii and PCC alumnus; and others.
Specially invited dignitaries and guests, as well as hundreds of BYU–Hawaii students and Tongan community members were already seated as PCC president and chief executive officer Alfred Grace and his wife, Sister Valerie Grace, escorted the royal couple to the village on a canoe.
After the king and queen took their seats on a raised throne-like dais that had been erected in front of the fale fakatu’i — a quarter-scale-replica of the late Queen Salote III’s summer palace in Tonga — President Grace said, “Here in this beautiful Tongan village, we encapsulate all that is significant, worthy and meaningful to the Polynesian Cultural Center. It is a showplace for a magnificent culture. It is a place of growth and financial support for BYU–Hawaii students and community employees; and it is a place that will bless all who visit.”
Earlier President Grace quoted President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency, who rededicated the Polynesian Cultural Center and its new Hukilau Market Place on Aug. 29, 2015, when he said, “May the PCC and its people be a blessing to the visitors who come from many nations and cultures. May those who come here with heavy hearts or weariness be re-energize, enriched, comforted and uplifted. May they find a place of refuge. May those who come out of a hectic world with a hope for serenity, neighborly love and for wholesome recreational activities, never be disappointed. May families and individuals find here a home away from home.”
The king also addressed the crowd, thanking the PCC for inviting him and pointing out that while his parents had visited several times in an official capacity, and he and his wife had come years before as tourists, “this is the first time we have come as guests with a formal function for the PCC, although it now seems like it’s becoming something of a tradition for my family to visit.”
“It’s a great idea that our young people can get to help spread their own culture here, as well as the center helping them to contribute toward their further discipline and education. It not only fosters pride in their own cultural identity, but also helps preserve and pass on the love of their own culture. Sadly, individual cultural identity is being eroded with increasing globalization.”
In addition to “an enormous sense of pride” being displayed in the work of those present, the king said, “It’s also useful to observe that the PCC is a place to mature in character, where students can develop and gain strength in their own individual traits in a safe and guided environment. Character is what makes us what we are in the long run. It is what we become for the rest of our lives.”
King Tupou VI then described such pride, character and the discipline the students receive while studying at BYU–Hawaii and working at the center as “three mutually supporting building blocks.”
“Finally, I would like to thank the center and Brigham Young University for providing an opportunity for education for so many of my fellow islanders for so many generations.”
Elder Haleck, who is originally from American Samoa, thanked the Polynesian monarch for his remarks and noted that many people will come to the PCC to enjoy the Tongan Village, “and its kingdom and people that are unique in all the world, for its cultures and its traditions. For indeed, we are more than just people. We are a reflection of our past, a reflection of those who have come before us.”
He said the royal and Church delegations enjoyed the PCC’s show, “Hā: Breath of Life,” the previous evening. “I would submit to you that our songs and dances … reflect our very being, of who we are, the people of Polynesia, the people of the isles of the sea. In our latter-day scriptures, in the Book of Mormon, Heavenly Father refers to us and says, great are the blessings unto those people who live upon the isles of the sea. We are remembered by Him.”
Under the direction of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Haleck then dedicated the renovated Tongan Village, blessing it to be “a place of many gatherings, a place where those who come here to visit, to see and witness the architecture and the buildings and the places where many of us whose ancestors have come to live and dwell in these places in the isles of the sea, particularly in Tonga, that they will come to appreciate those people who are here representing and reflecting the culture of Tonga.
“I bless it that it will be a place of peace, that it will be place that will be protected from the elements.
“I bless it that as many, many will come to this wonderful place that they will be touched in their hearts, that they will find tranquility, that they will indeed find a friendly people — friendly not only in their smiles, but more friendly in the richness of who they are in the cultures and the peoples that they represent.”
In conclusion, Elder Haleck blessed the PCC’s Tongan Village that it would be a “wonderful place” where the students would gain “a sense of identity of who they are: Not only as people of the Pacific, particularly Tonga, that they’ll understand their great identity as children of our Heavenly Father.”
More protocol followed, led by his majesty’s talking chief who engaged in oratorical exchanges with one of the center’s own Tongan chiefs, Eric Shumway, a retired president of both BYU–Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center. As a young missionary in Tonga, Brother Shumway’s abilities with the Tongan language were so highly regarded that he was asked to take the chiefly title Faivaola.
Dressed in traditional Tongan clothes and sitting across the village green from Motu’apuaka, Brother Shumway, speaking in high oratorical Tongan, acknowledged the royals and all the other dignitaries. He recognized “all those whose hands and hearts led to the building of the Polynesian Cultural Center and our presence here today.” He also traced the history of Laie as an ancient Hawaiian place of refuge and its LDS Church history starting with the purchase of Laie plantation in 1865.
Switching to English, he said, “From the beginning, the Polynesian Cultural Center affirmed the Christian message: One blood, all nations.” He also affirmed that the spirit of aloha and the Spirit of Jesus Christ were identical.
“Today we celebrate the Tongan Village, and its contribution to the center and to the world,” Brother Shumway said. (On Sunday evening, June 12, he also addressed an interdenominational musical devotional in Tongan in the Honolulu Tabernacle.)
Next, each of the Polynesian Cultural Center villages presented the royal couple with customary gifts, songs and dances. The PCC executive team and board of directors also presented them with a beautiful hand-sewn Hawaiian quilt and other gifts, including dozens of boxes of chocolate-covered Hawaiian macadamia nut candy to take home.
“The circumstances couldn’t have been more favorable,” Elder Haleck said after the events. “We’re grateful for the surroundings we’re in, and we feel a special kinship to the students from the islands who are here going to school.”
“We’re grateful for this wonderful place the Church has provided, the Polynesian Cultural Center, where we can celebrate our heritage and our cultures, and understand and remember who we are as a result.”
“I think the Polynesian Cultural Center is providing much more than an education,” he said. “It’s speaking also to the people and reminding them of who they are.”
