The Hawaiian Temple

Very close to BYU Hawaii and the Polynesian Cultural Center is the Hawaiian Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Opened in 1919, the temple is the first one built outside the Continental United States and is the first built in the Polynesia and Hawaiian areas.  It is only a half mile from the Ocean and is surrounded by beautiful flowers and cascading pools.  It is a rather small temple when you consider that it was only around 10,000 square feet in size when built.  It is now around 40,000 square feet in size.  Besides the sessions conducted in English, it also offers ASL (American Sign Language) sessions and ones in Tongan and Samoan.

While being built, the crew ran out of lumber and construction for the temple ceased.  Not knowing quite what to do, prayers were offered to find a solution.  Two days later, a freighter became caught on a coral reef just off the island.  The Captain of the ship offered the people of the island his entire cargo if they helped him unload it enabling him to get off the reef.  The cargo?  Lumber!  in fact, enough that they could complete the temple.