Laie Hawaii Temple Miracles

The Laie Hawaii Temple has brought many blessings to all the islands of Hawaii, and enlarged the reach of the temple blessings to far away islands of the sea, thousands of miles away. When the Laie Temple was first built the countries assigned to the temple were Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Japan, and Australia. As the Church continued to grow throughout the Pacific and Asia, the number of countries blessed by this temple continued to increase. Hawaii plays an important role in the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ to many countries, it is a blessed land chosen by God to fulfill an important purpose.

All Will Be Made Possible Through Christ

While some members were able to leave their homes in the Pacific and immigrated to Hawaii, others were not able to "gather" in the same way. The faithful Saints from wards and branches from various nations organized group trips, called excursions, to the temple. This is an example of a spiritual form of gathering. It provided a way for Church members to travel to receive temple ordinances and then return home to build the Church in their own nations.

At the dedication if the La'ie Hawaii Temple, President Heber J. Grant prayed for the Lord to open the way for Saints in New Zealand and all the Pacific Islands and to secure their genealogies so they could come to the temple and be sealed to the family of God.

Temple excursions began with a group of Maori Saints in New Zealand just six months after the dedication of the La'ie Temple. Though 5,000 miles (8,045 km) away from Hawaii, these Saints rejoiced at the news of the dedication.

Waimate and Heeni Anaru yearned to be part of the first group to travel to the temple. Yet the task seemed impossible because of the family’s poverty and the required cost of 1,200 New Zealand pounds for the trip—a hefty sum. They would need a miracle.

For years, the Anaru family followed the prophet’s counsel and gathered their genealogical records. Those records then sat in stacks while the Anarus waited for a miracle to occur. Their son, Wiwini, knew of his parents’ faith: “Mother never ever despaired that she would [not] someday kneel with Father at a temple altar.”

A miracle did occur. Waimate received a contract from the New Zealand government for a large land-development project. His income from this project provided sufficient cash paid in advance to cover the cost of the trip to Hawaii. Waimate and Heeni overcame their fear of ocean travel and journeyed to Hawaii with a group of 14 Saints in May 1920. They received their endowments and were sealed. The impossible had happened, with the help of a loving Father in Heaven.

The Anarus’ family story is only one story among thousands about Latter-day Saints who traveled to the Laie Hawaii Temple in the early years, to receive ordinances and claim the promises offered by the Lord in His house. These efforts required great sacrifice, but it produced stronger Saints who returned to their homelands prepared to lead the Church. President Monson said: “As we attend the temple, there can come to us a dimension of spirituality and a feeling of peace which will transcend any other feeling which could come into the human heart. We will grasp the true meaning of the words of the Savior when He said: ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. … Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid’ [John 14:27].” The power of peace through our Savior Jesus Christ is given to all who attend the temple righteously, and the Saints from around the world are able to have that same power of peace.

Genealogy Work Laie Hawaii Temple

When temple ordinances become available to a nation, they bring the Lord’s blessings not only to those living in that country but also to those from that nation now on the other side of the veil. This blessing has been felt by members in Asian countries, where their culture has meticulously recorded genealogy for centuries.

Kwai Shoon Lung’s parents migrated from China to Hawaii. He was born in Kauai in 1894 and baptized in 1944 on his 50th birthday. Brother Lung taught family history at church and told his class, “I had a vision one night in which I saw many of my dead kindred beckoning me to work for them.” Three days later he received his genealogy from his aunt in China: 22 pages in Chinese script revealing his ancestry back to AD 1221. Together with his son Glenn and daughter-in-law Julina, they have completed thousands of ordinances in the temple for their family. Glenn and Julina Lung later served faithfully as president and matron of the Laie Temple from 2001 to 2004.

By Jean B. Bingham

Relief Society General President in 2018 said "As troubles in the world increase and the pressures of daily life build up, we must keep our focus on the things that really matter. It is easy to focus on the negative and on worldly woes, as if we were looking at our failures and problems through a microscope. Being in the temple reminds us to keep an eternal perspective. Like a massive telescope focused on stars beyond our immediate sight, the temple opens our minds to a higher and broader vision. It allows us to see, hope for, and work toward becoming all that Heavenly Father has designed us to be. It helps us focus on eternal truths—on Heavenly Parents who love us and desire to help us, on our true worth as Their children, and on what we are capable of becoming as “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). In the temple, the plan of God is taught and eternal covenants are made. In the temple, we are given the tools to become our highest and best eternal selves."

The Scroll That Wouldn’t Burn

Michie Eguchi came to Hawaii from Japan in the early 1900s and brought with her a silk Japanese scroll. Her granddaughter Kanani Casey served a mission in Japan and later discovered that her grandmother’s scroll traced her family’s ancestry back almost a thousand years.

In 2013, Kanani’s house burned to the ground. She and her family lost nearly everything in the fire. They had stored their genealogy in plastic tubs underneath their bed. After the fire, they went back to the house, only to find a mountain of ash and soot.

“The only thing that I really hoped to find was the copy of the scroll with its translations and history,” Kanani said. “I was reassured that all the temple work had already been done for my Japanese ancestors, but the copy of the scroll was so precious to me.”

As Kanani and her husband, Billy, waded through the ashes, they eventually found a blue plastic bag. Inside the bag, they found the copy of the scroll, along with translations and a family history book, amazingly still intact. The scroll was just a little burned around the edges, but it was the only thing in their bedroom that survived.

Kanani feels the Lord preserved the scroll “for the benefit of my posterity as a testament of his love for us and to show the importance of doing family history and temple work” (in Christensen, Stories of the Temple in Lāʻie, Hawaiʻi, 172–74).

References:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2019/10/the-laie-hawaii-temple-a-century-of-gathering?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2018/01/the-temple-gives-us-higher-vision?lang=eng