For nearly seven full decades, the Hamilton New Zealand Temple has served as the first and predominant house of the Lord for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the South Pacific — from Australia and beyond to the 1,000-plus Polynesian islands like New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and French Polynesia as well as the Melanesian islands of Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
Originally named the New Zealand Temple and located just outside the north-central North Island community of Hamilton, this house of the Lord was the Church’s first in the Southern Hemisphere. Built by the sweat and sweet sacrifices of labor missionaries starting in the early 1950s, the temple was dedicated in April 1958 — along with the adjacent Church College of New Zealand — by President David O. McKay.
For the next 25 years, Latter-day Saints from all over the Oceania area saved and sacrificed to travel to Hamilton to make temple covenants and receive the blessings of the endowment and sealing ordinances.
“Some sold their homes and worked tirelessly to be able to take their families to the house of the Lord,” recalled Elder Taniela B. Wakolo, a General Authority Seventy who serves as first counselor in the Pacific Area presidency and is a native of Fiji. “Families were sealed, then they returned to their homelands endowed with great power to live and exemplify the covenant of the Lord.”
Elder Vaiangina Sikahema, a General Authority Seventy and native of Tonga, related in an October 2022 Church News article the sacrifices made by his father, Sione Sikahema — who recently died — to take his small, young family from the Tongan capital of Nuku’alofa to be sealed in the New Zealand Temple in 1967, when Elder Sikahema was just 5 years old.
“For many of whom I would call ‘the pioneer Saints of the Pacific,’ the New Zealand Temple has remained a beacon of hope, where we could go and receive all of the blessings of exaltation in the temple, with the ordinances being available to us,” Elder Sikahema said. “It was incredibly powerful for us, even for those of us who were too young to understand what was really going on.”
Such was the singular start of the legacy of temples in the South Pacific.
An expansion of South Pacific temples
Then, a quarter century after the house of the Lord in Hamilton had been the sole sacred destination for eternal ordinances, others were built and dedicated — the Apia Samoa and Nuku’alofa Tonga temples opening in August 1983, the Papeete Tahiti Temple two months later and the Sydney Australia Temple the next year. All four were dedicated by President Gordon B. Hinckley, then a First Presidency counselor to President Spencer W. Kimball.
Said Elder Wakolo of the new temples: “Many would say that this is a fulfillment and manifestation of 2 Nephi 29:7 — ‘Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea …?‘”
Subsequently as Church President, President Hinckley dedicated five more temples in the South Pacific — the Adelaide Australia, Melbourne Australia and Suva Fiji temples over a four-day span in June 2000, followed by temples in Perth and Brisbane, Australia, in 2001 and 2003, respectively.
The latest wave of new houses of the Lord in the Church’s Pacific Area come through President Russell M. Nelson, who has announced 10 such temples in his seven years as President of the Church, ranging from Papua New Guinea to New Caledonia and Kiribati to Vanuatu.
The first of those 10 to be built and ready for operations is the Auckland New Zealand Temple, to be dedicated Sunday, April 13, by Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. It is New Zealand’s second house of the Lord (a third has been announced for Wellington) — and is located about 100 miles northwest of the temple in Hamilton.
Temples across the South Pacific
The Auckland New Zealand Temple will be the 11th dedicated house of the Lord in the Church’s Pacific Area. Five additional temples are under construction and six more are in various stages of planning for a total of 22 temples in the area.
Dedicated temples — with date of dedication
- Hamilton New Zealand Temple — April 20, 1958
- Apia Samoa Temple — Aug. 5, 1983
- Nuku’alofa Tonga Temple — Aug. 9, 1983
- Papeete Tahiti Temple — Oct. 27, 1983
- Sydney Australia Temple — Sept. 20, 1984
- Adelaide Australia Temple — June 15, 2000
- Melbourne Australia Temple — June 16, 2000
- Suva Fiji Temple — June 18, 2000
- Perth Australia Temple — May 20, 2001
- Brisbane Australia Temple — June 15, 2003
- Auckland New Zealand Temple — to be dedicated April 13, 2025
Temples under construction — with date of groundbreaking
- Neiafu Tonga Temple — Sept. 11, 2021
- Pago Pago American Samoa Temple — Oct. 30, 2021
- Port Vila Vanuatu Temple — April 8, 2023
- Port Moresby Papua New Guinea Temple — April 22, 2023
- Tarawa Kiribati Temple — Nov. 2, 2024
Temples with sites — with date of site announcement
- Wellington New Zealand Temple — Nov. 28, 2022
- Savai’i Samoa Temple — March 11, 2024
Temples in planning — with date of announcement
- Brisbane Australia South Temple — April 7, 2024
- Uturoa French Polynesia Temple — April 7, 2024
- Liverpool Australia Temple — April 6, 2025
- Nouméa New Caledonia Temple — April 6, 2025
‘Equally historic’
Elder S. Mark Palmer — a member of the Presidency of the Seventy and the only currently serving general authority from New Zealand — has a connection to and perspective of both of New Zealand’s temples. As a teenager, he lived about a mile from the site of the Auckland New Zealand Temple, which at the time was rural property with very few houses.
“Generations of New Zealanders like me attended [Church College of New Zealand] and literally went to school every morning with eyes raised to the beautiful Hamilton temple — a beacon of light and beauty on a majestic hillside,” he said. “As the first temple in the Southern Hemisphere, it will always hold a special place in our hearts.
But he called having a house of the Lord in Auckland, where in May 1958 the first stake outside of North America was organized, “equally historic.”
“I remember when I was a young adult in Auckland, we would have a stake temple trip to Hamilton once a month that would leave by bus after work and return in the wee hours of the next morning,” he said.
Elder Palmer said he is “thrilled” for the Latter-day Saints in Auckland and the northern area of New Zealand’s North Island who will be able to worship in the temple more frequently.
“I am also thrilled that this beautiful house of the Lord will be such a prominent and visible symbol of our faith to the many thousands who drive by on the motorway every day,” he said of the temple’s stunning hillside location overlooking State Highway 1, the nation’s longest and most significant highway.
‘Continuing to live the legacy’
The temple on the hill is much like the Savior’s Sermon on the Mount mention of “a city that is set on a hillside cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14). “Our wonderful Saints are a great light to the people of New Zealand,” Elder Palmer said.
And those Latter-day Saints are not only the native, self-labeled “Kiwis” but also include those who moved here from across the South Pacific, said Elder Wakolo. “Many Saints have migrated to Auckland, and they are continuing to live the legacy of their forefathers to continue to love worshipping in the house of the Lord.”
Summarized Elder Palmer of the role of the new Auckland New Zealand Temple as the latest in the area’s growing legacy of temples: “It is humbling that the Lord has once again shown His favor and love for His children in the Pacific by providing another house of the Lord in which we can worship and make sacred covenants.”
