HAMILTON, New Zealand — The Saints in New Zealand are celebrating this week.
It’s the 50 th anniversary of the dedication of the New Zealand Temple, the first LDS temple in the South Pacific and the 11 th in the Church.
Dedicated by President David O. McKay on Sunday, April 20, 1958, the temple serves 80,000 members in 26 stakes and districts in an area the size of California, including the Cook Islands and New Caledonia.
Rather than one huge event, the festivities have taken place more quietly in individual stakes and wards, beginning with a special fast the first Sunday of April (which was General Conference in Salt Lake City, but the proceedings were witnessed a week later in recorded telecasts in New Zealand). Each stake has held a fireside commemorating the temple dedication, and sacrament meeting talks and music on April 20 will feature the temple as their theme.
Just in time, the 9,000-square-foot visitors’ center re-opened in March after being under renovation since Fall 2007. Staffed by local couples and sister missionaries as well as the directors, the visitors center normally attracts many during the holidays when Christmas lights decorate the temple grounds. While it was closed last December, an open house at a nearby chapel hosted 1,300 visitors.
The 34,000-square-foot New Zealand Temple, in the same architectural style as the Swiss temple, was built by labor missionaries. Ground was broken Dec. 21, 1955, and the footings were poured in February 1956, at the height of New Zealand’s summer. Some 112,500 visitors attended the open house prior to the dedication in 1958.
The New Zealand Temple lies some 80 kilometers south of the large city of Auckland on the North Island. Placed on a hill in a pastoral setting a few minutes outside of Hamilton, in a community called Temple View, the temple is visible from far away.
Caretakers maintain 34 acres of extensive grasslands surrounding, along with the landscaped grounds and gardens.
Timothy and Rawinia Clarke are among 2,600 members from 26 stakes and districts who staff the temple, along with 40 regular shift workers. After marrying in recent years, they moved closer to the temple, where they have served as temple missionaries the past four years. They are there five or six days a week, for three shifts a day.
R. Kalei DeCaires, current bishop of the nearby Cowley Ward and temple recorder since 1996, noted that 1,500-2,000 endowments are performed at the temple each week. “That’s pretty good for one ordinance room,” he said. He recorded close to 93,000 ordinances in 2007, most of them family names brought to the temple by members who have been researching their family history.
“Attendance has increased by 35 percent,” he said, since a program began where each stake has two weeks to do temple work; they bring their own temple workers and can stay in the patron housing during that time. They also bring their own names for work to be done.
In January of this year, a group of 150 members from New Caledonia – an island a thousand miles north of New Zealand – brought 8,000 names to the New Zealand Temple.
“People were doing family names,” he said. “They didn’t want to leave!”
Although the temple was closed in 1993 for two months to replace wall coverings and furnishings, then in 1994-95 for nine months for extensive refurbishing and removal of asbestos and installation of air conditioning, it is essentially the same as when it was dedicated 50 years ago.
“The temple has been a light and a beacon to the members,” said Bishop DeCaires. “Our focus [with its anniversary] has been to help patrons have a wonderful experience when they’re here. We hope they will be uplifted and edified, and want to return.”
