Under blue skies and surrounded by blue waters, the groundbreaking ceremony for the Tarawa Kiribati Temple took place Saturday, Nov. 2, signaling the start of the construction phase for a new house of the Lord on a remote Pacific island.
The temple will serve the more than 28,000 Latter-day Saints in the two island nations — the Republic of Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, both comprising coral atolls, island chains and islets. Church members there currently have to travel to the closest houses of the Lord in Fiji and Hawaii to participate in temple worship and ordinances.
Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi, a General Authority Seventy and second counselor in the Pacific Area presidency, presided at the groundbreaking ceremony in Kiribati’s capital of Tarawa, offering a prayer dedicating the site and the construction process.
“Today’s breaking of the ground is symbolic of planting a giant coconut or breadfruit seed. It will produce the greatest harvest we have seen or can conceive for generations to come,” said Elder Jaggi in his remarks.
“Settlers came to these islands thousands of years ago. They may have come to find a more peaceful place. They may have come for more freedom. They may have come because the rocky reefs provide more protection from the storms and the king tides.
“The temple that will be built in this spot will provide great protection from the storms of life,” Elder Jaggi promised.
And in the prayer, Elder Jaggi connected Kiribati with God’s promise in 2 Nephi 29:7: “I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth.”
Elder Jaggi was accompanied by his wife, Sister Amy Jaggi. Elder Iotua Tune, an Area Seventy in the Pacific Area, conducted the services, which were broadcast live to people gathered in meetinghouses across Kiribati.
President Taneti Maamau, president of Kiribati, and first lady Teiraeng Maamau attended the groundbreaking, with the Kiribati president offering remarks.
Other guests included Willie Tokataake, speaker of the house; Karen Bray, Australian high commissioner; André van der Walt, New Zealand high commissioner; and Zhou Limin, Chinese ambassador.
In his address, President Maamau said, “The longstanding partnership between the government and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has allowed us to nurture faith, build communities, and ensure peace and security for our people.”
The president shared that during his visit with President Russell M. Nelson in 2018, he had requested that a temple for Kiribati be considered because he was concerned that “when our people get married, [and seek] the sacred blessings of the [temple], they normally travel to Fiji or to Tonga.”
He expressed appreciation that Church leadership had authorized and approved the building of the temple in Tarawa. “At last God has blessed us with a mandate to see the faith and the spirit of the Holy God working through our people,” President Maamau said.
Other speakers included:
- Tamara Ruateiti, age 10, from the Temaiku 1st Branch, who reminded attendees to “stay on the covenant path.”
- Agnes Temokua, a teen from the Buota Branch, who spoke about the importance of preparing to receive the temple endowment, making sacred covenants with Heavenly Father and remembering President Nelson’s promise that “increased time in the temple will bless your life in ways nothing else can.”
- Obeira Teauoki, a young adult also from the Buota Branch, shared the things he would do to prepare to receive a temple marriage or sealing ordinance, including serving a full-time mission, obeying the commandments and seeking counsel from his parents.
President Russell M. Nelson announced a temple for Tarawa, Kiribati, on Oct. 4, 2020, one of six locations for new houses of the Lord that the President of the Church identified at the conclusion of the October 2020 general conference.
The Tarawa temple’s site and exterior renderings were released May 19, 2021, projecting a single-story edifice of approximately 10,000 square feet, with a center spire. The 0.80-acre site at Ambo, South Tarawa, will include not only the temple but also a new meetinghouse and a facility for patron housing. An additional ancillary facility will be located about a quarter of a mile west of the temple site.
The Church in Kiribati
Kiribati is currently in the Suva Fiji Temple district — that temple is more than 1,400 miles southeast of Kiribati.
The Church counts more than 22,600 Latter-day Saints in Kiribati — or about one out of every six residents — in two stakes, 37 congregations and one mission.
Kiribati — pronounced “KEE-ruh-bas” — is a collection of 33 Micronesian islands in the mid-Pacific, where the equator and international dateline meet.
Church roots trace back to local school teacher Waitea Abiuta asking if his graduates could attend Liahona High School in Tonga, with the request approved in 1972. Abiuta and several students converted to the Latter-day Saint faith, and the students later served as Kiribati’s first missionaries, in October 1975.
The first constructed meetinghouse was completed in 1984, and the late Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in 1996.
The Church in the Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands are currently in the Laie Hawaii Temple district — that temple is nearly 2,300 miles northeast of the Marshall Islands.
Nearly 7,000 Latter-day Saints comprising two stakes and 13 congregations reside in the Marshall Islands.
The Marshalls are 29 coral atolls and five islands across two parallel island chains some 400 miles north of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean.
The earliest converts to the Church joined in 1977 and 1978 across several of the republic’s islands. Missionaries first arrived in the capital city of Majuro in 1977, with the first convert there being Misao Lokeijak, who was baptized in early February. By the end of the year, there were 27 Latter-day Saints on the island; by the following May, a branch was created, with Lokeijak as branch president.
