We arrived at the airport before light finding the security gates closed. It was the Kahului 1st Ward’s Temple day. The Kahului Hawaii Temple was announced in 2023 but as of now has not been built or started. So, with the Kona Temple under renovation on the ‘big’ island to the south, ward members sacrifice and make the trip west every couple months or so by air to the La’ie Temple on the north shore of O’ahu. At the Honolulu airport, we boarded a few rental vehicles and made the beautiful drive to La’ie. In route it was very pleasant to converse with ward members. Behind the driver was smart and humble Canadian Dale T, about age 70 and a long time resident of Maui. Turn’s out we had a connection with an acquaintance at BYU, Professor Robert T. many years before. In the second row behind me was sweet demeanor Betty Dumaran, a few short years behind President Russell. M. Nelson in age, able to walk slowly but made effective use of the wheelchair staff at the airport. I felt like Betty was my own mother, so kind and thoughtful insisting she pay me back for her Egg-McMuffin at the drive through. Joan was seated in the back row of our van with another sister (isn’t that really nice Joan let her husband sit in shotgun to minimize motion sickness in and out of the curves of the winding coastal road?). Our driver, young Brother Kelii C. seems to have lived on every Hawaiian island. He was born on that very Oahu north shore, lived on Molokai, and worked on Maui for a company headquarters on Kauai, if I remember correctly. Along that north shore he told us where his relatives still live and all about his shallow water spearfishing and the reef causing waves out about a half mile from so.

More about the conversation and getting to know these beautiful people later. With no time to spare, we arrived and made our way into the beautiful Hawaii La’ie Temple. It looked like all the pictures I’d seen. Back home in Utah Valley, where there are five temples to choose from within thirty minutes, we were in the habit of weekly worship and service there. The powerful words of the endowment and other ordinances were reassuring each time we went. We have been in Hawaii for just a few weeks and it was a blessing to enter a place again where such eternal promises and blessings could be explained, made and renewed. The spirit of the temple, whether in Utah or Hawaii is the spirit of eternity, and the very horizon enabled by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. “Thank you Heavenly Father for thy plan and these blessings.” Of course, one cannot experience this and only think of themselves. At the temple there is this compelling feeling to share its meaning with all of God’s children. After the endowment and sealing sessions several of us gathered outside for a photo. I felt something different, a mix of joy and splendor and love and an absence of fear. These were no longer strangers, but fellow citizens in the family of God. We made covenants (or by proxy represented others in making covenants) and we had pondered the eternal significance of the covenants while together.

Earlier that week on Maui we had experienced a similar feeling. During some of our discretionary time, Joan and I took a drive ‘up-country,’ a residential area on the foothills of Haleakala at about three-thousand feet in elevation. It is a beautiful area where, this time of year the Jacaranda trees paint the hillside with plenty of purple and with shade, showering the green ground with a lovely hue and aroma. We visited the Surfing Goat Dairy and enjoyed God’s sweet creatures and sweet chocolates made with goat milk. We also visited the Pulehu Chapel in Kula, built by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near the site of the first convert baptism in 1851. Passing through the chain-link fence one feels like they have entered sacred temple grounds and upon entering the little well restored chapel, one feels like singing a sacred hymn. Or at least Joan does. After checking the guest register for where visitors all over the world came from, she went right to the pulpit, opened the well-worn green hymnbook and began singing, “Come Ye Children of the Lord.” Synchronizing with her soprano, I joined with bass on the second verse. (The words echoed from the painted slats and stucco; the meaning resonated in our hearts.)
“Oh, how joyful it will be, when our Savior we shall see?
When in splendor he’ll descend, then all wickedness will end.
Oh, what songs we then will sing, to our Savior, Lord, and King!
Oh, what love will then bear sway, when our fears shall flee away?

Back to our temple trip. Before leaving La’ie, Brother Kelii C. asked if we had any preferences for lunch then quickly made a recommendation, Ken’s Fresh Fish. We all agreed and soon we were sinking our teeth into the most delicious Ahi I have ever tasted. During the one hour drive back to Honolulu we experienced sunshine, heavy rain, great Hawaiian vistas, and amazing tunnels through the steep, green, volcanic mountains dividing the windward and the leeward sides of the island. My conversation with Brother Kelii turned out to be very helpful and encouraging for our upcoming assignments as service missionaries. It certainly was not coincidence that he was our temple trip coordinator and our driver that day. The Lord brought us together to move His work forward. We visited and got to know our new friends even more while waiting for our flight at the airport. When we landed back on Maui, we felt the promised love of God which we felt from our experiences of the week, of that day, and in the temple.

Ken and Joan Hardman

Picture 1 – Hawaii La’ie Temple Trip

Picture 2 – Pulehu Chapel, Kula, Maui

Picture 3 – Surfing Goat Dairy