Calling Laie a sacred place with people who love and serve God, there were four speakers at a fireside on July 5 in the historic Laie (First Ward) chapel kicking off the annual Laie Days events held during the month July.
As they have for many years, the people and Latter-day Saint institutions of this small community began a month-long celebration of their distinctly Mormon heritage.
In his remarks, President Max Purcell, first counselor in the Laie Hawaii North Stake Presidency, recalled how he first came to Laie from Samoa 41 years ago to further his education. He and his wife, Carolyn, have since raised their three daughters here.
“This is a very special and unique community,” he said. “To live in Laie is a great blessing, and I think this extends from the fact that there’s a House of the Lord here.” He added that “our somewhat isolated location acts as a buffer for us against those who might otherwise come here and cause problems. It was former Laie Hawaii Temple President [and former Hawaii missionary] Arthur Haycock who said that in this valley, we’re protected by the Lord. I firmly believe that. Here we can practice the gospel to its fullest.”
The program featured a Hawaiian choir —comprised mostly of kūpuna or community elders. The speakers included two labor missionary representatives who built the BYU–Hawaii campus, the Polynesian Cultural Center and other church-related facilities more than 50 years ago, Purcell and Pane Meatoga Jr., president of the Laie Community Association and a multi-generational resident of Laie. Each speaker noted this year marks 150 years since the LDS Church officially established itself here.
“I love it here in Laie,” said Purcell. “I love the kūpuna [elders in the choir] behind me: Their ancestors came here on canoes. I came on an airplane, but we all came to this sacred place, Laie.”
Latter-day Saint missionaries officially opened the Hawaii mission in December 1850. As Church membership began to grow, later that decade leaders launched a pioneering community on the island of Lanai, which was interrupted by the “Utah War” and other problems. Church leaders next purchased more than 6,000 acres of land comprising Laie Plantation on Jan. 26, 1865, as its headquarters and “gathering place.” The first group of leaders, missionaries and Saints joined the small group of members already here on July 7, 1865.
Significant events, out of proportion to the community’s modest size, have taken place since then. For example:
President Joseph F. Smith, who served several missions in Hawaii starting as a teenage boy in 1854, dedicated the site of the Laie Hawaii Temple on June 1, 1915. When President Heber J. Grant dedicated the completed temple on Thanksgiving Day 1919, the Laie edifice became the Church’s fifth temple, the first to be built outside the continental United States, and the first with an international focus.
The I Hemolele chapel that had been on that site since it was built in 1881-1882 was moved to the site approximately now occupied by the Laie chapel.
After Elder David O. McKay, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, witnessed the multi-ethnic school children in the mission school then adjacent to the new temple in Laie raise and pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag on February 7, 1921, he envisioned a school of higher learning would someday be built here.
The historic I Hemolele chapel accidentally burned down in 1940, but it wasn’t until after World War II that the mostly Hawaiian and Samoan Saints living in Laie raised enough money to replace it: They started a popular “hukilau” — a traditional Hawaiian communal fishing event, followed by a luau and entertainment — as a fund-raiser on Jan. 31, 1948. Thousands of visitors would continue to enjoy until 1971, but on March 5, 1950, Elder Matthew Cowley of the Quorum of the Twelve, dedicated what local members today still refer to as the “old” Laie chapel.
Soon after President McKay succeeded President George Albert Smith in 1951, he set in motion steps to fulfill his vision of a university; and on February 12, 1955, he dedicated the site of the Church College of Hawaii, which was renamed Brigham Young University–Hawaii in 1974. CCH began that fall in a combination of temporary facilities next to the Laie chapel. Meanwhile, labor missionaries were called from Hawaii and the U.S. mainland to build the permanent campus, which President McKay dedicated on December 17, 1958.
More labor missionaries, including a contingent from the South Pacific — many of whom had previously been serving in their own islands — were called to expand the new campus, add more Church-related buildings and create the Polynesian Cultural Center. President Hugh B. Brown of the First Presidency dedicated the PCC on Oct. 12, 1963; and today, more than 50 years later, approximately 700 BYUH students now work at the PCC to help with the costs of their education. In that same time, almost 40 million people have visited Laie.
Anton Haiku, a young Hawaiian from Kauai, had only been a member of the Church for a few months in 1956 when he was called to Laie as a labor missionary for the next several years. “When we got here, there was a watermelon patch on the left, a sugar cane field on the right, and a U.S. flag in the middle of the new campus. They were just getting ready to put up the walls of the main building,” he told the fireside attendees.
Haiku started training as a carpenter, and later as a mason and electrician under skilled supervisors, who were also voluntarily serving as labor missionaries. In addition to the hard, physical work, he said the experience was very spiritual, “but there were no complaints from the men. It was the Spirit that caused us to be happy in what we were doing, and I’ve carried that same spirit with me all of my life since — the spirit of doing the Lord’s work. It touched our lives.”
“We loved the work that we did, and the people we worked with,” he said. “I’m grateful for the time I was able to serve as a labor missionary.”
Haiku explained after most of his original labor missionary companions were released, he was asked to serve again. “I wondered, why me? They said the Lord wants you, and that’s all they needed to say.”
He helped build the Polynesian Cultural Center and other projects, and went on after to make a career out of physical facilities work at the popular visitor attraction.
Another large group of labor missionaries who helped build the Cultural Center had already been serving for the previous three years in Samoa, Tonga and New Zealand, when they were called to Hawaii in March 1960.
Sione Feinga, one of those who came from Tonga, recalled how kind the late Laie storekeeper Charley Goo was. “He knew we didn’t make any money, and he helped us. He told me, ever since you guys arrived, this town has never been the same.”
Feinga recalled he and his fellow missionaries from Tonga and Samoa soon discovered a big difference in in their Hawaii callings: “The first month we served here, in our little mail box we each got $10. We got together and said, ‘We’ve come up in life.’ For three years in the islands, we were lucky to have a coconut to drink sometimes. We never dreamed of getting paid.”
Feinga also praised the labor missionary supervisors, who served as volunteers. “Half of them were retired. The others had good jobs on the mainland. They’d made a lot of money, but they came to work with us.”
“We love this place,” Feinga said.
Speaking after the two labor missionaries, Meatoga said as a person who’s worked in the construction industry, he relates to the efforts of Haiku and Feinga.
“I’m so grateful to the Lord for sending a skilled work force from the western United States to help us here in Laie learn the skills we needed to build and maintain this community,” he said.
Meatoga cited the story of how President Joseph F. Smith indicated that young Ralph E. Woolley — son of Hawaii mission president at that time, Samuel E. Woolley — would supervise the construction of the Laie Hawaii Temple: “He didn’t have any construction experience; he had a mining engineering degree,” Meatoga said, “and he had faith.”
For example, as World War I made it more difficult to obtain building supplies, especially lumber, the younger Woolley would climb into the belfry of the I Hemolele chapel and pray for help. Soon after one such prayer, a ship carrying lumber ran aground off Laie: Woolley was able to make arrangements to get the lumber for free in exchange for helping offload the cargo, lightening the ship which then continued its journey.
“Brother Woolley was a good friend of my grandfather, and President Joseph F. Smith used to write letters — some in Hawaiian — to my great-grandfather when he lived at Iosepa in Skull Valley, Utah,” Meatoga continued.
In one such letter from 1890, President Smith wrote, “Those that God loves, He tries. Those that are steadfast in the trials will eventually receive the crown of eternal life.”
“As we celebrate our Pioneer Day this year, we are so grateful for our labor missionaries,” Meatoga continued. “Whether we’re imports or home-grown here, we’re all part of our Heavenly Father’s kingdom.”
He added the recent Independence Day holiday also “made me realize how grateful I am to be a citizen of this country, and more importantly, to be a son of our Heavenly Father and a member of this Church.”
In his concluding remarks, President Purcell also praised the labor missionaries. He mentioned that his late father was a labor missionary in Samoa, where many of the buildings they put up are still being used; and he noted that here in Laie, when BYUH officials recently contemplated removing some of the original two-story dormitories built by the labor missionaries, they discovered they were built so strongly that a third floor could easily be added.
“I’m amazed at the things the Lord does for us. I also think that where much has been given, much is expected,” he continued. “We who live in this community need to be aware of that: We have been given much, and we need to express our gratitude to Him by keeping the commandments, and by loving Him.”
“If we love Him, we will go to the temple. If we love Him, we will be active in missionary work. If we love him, we will do our genealogy work. If we love Him, we will do whatever is asked of us."