Hamilton Temple Experience

On Tuesday, September 27, we left Cody and JoEllen's and headed south to Hamilton. We found a cute motel, Camelot on Ulster Inn to stay. We went to the Temple on Wednesday and Thursday. It was a great experience, to see how many of our new friends had taken a week off, during the kid's 2 week fall break, to travel hours to the temple. They have small apartments for rent next to the temple, which many took advantage of, to save money. It was also gratifying to see the ward and stake leaders being in charge of many of the duties in the temple. One couple worked the baptistry all week, while the youth did multiple baptisms during the week.  It would be great to see this kind of dedication in the US.

The Temple is very beautiful. It was the 3rd temple built outside the USA, in the 1950's. It was built with volunteer labor, and is really quite small. Only one endowment session can run at a time. They only do 5 or 6 sessions a day. Because the Church used to have a high school next to the Temple, which was converted into the first New Zealand MTC (now it is in Auckland), there is a lot of land available for growth. They are currently building a new Stake Center there, and a museum of the history of the Church in New Zealand.

 I believe that if Gpa Burch (Lois' dad) had come here and seen these cattle grazing on such lush land, with no irrigation, and seldom below freezing in the winter, and only 80's in the summer, with a temple in the background, he would never have returned to Utah.

 Storms all around

This is Rangi Parker. She has collected photo's and missionary journals and other data for the past 30 years of the growth of the Church in New Zealand. Most of it is from the perspective of the missionaries who traveled here from the USA. From their photos and missionary journals, she has been able to help local members, mostly Maori, find pictures of their ancestors and family history lines. The Maori's history was a verbal history, and the early missionaries who learned the Maori language would write down the family histories. The Maori's often couldn't write so the missionary journal has been found to be the best record in many cases. She also has been able to identify members today in photos when they were children. If anyone wants more info, just google her name. She has had at least 2 Ensign articles written on her trips to the USA to get information, photos and missionary journal from the descendants of the old missionaries.

She has over 30,000 photos and her collection will be part of the new Pacific Area Church History Museum in Hamilton.  She is a sweet lady. She used to be part of a 3 girl pop group in the 60's and 70's that were popular in New Zealand and Australia.