President Howard W. Hunter was instrumental during his service as an apostle in enhancing the presence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Holy Land.
He and Elder LeGrand Richards spearheaded the fund raising for the Orson Hyde Memorial Gardens on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem during the 1970s. He also spent many years helping create the BYU Jerusalem Center, known officially as the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies - Brigham Young University.The groundwork for the Orson Hyde gardens was laid in 1972 when President Harold B. Lee, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, then of the Twelve, and Swiss Mission President Edwin Q. Cannon met with representatives of some Israeli ministries to explore the possibility of a monument to Elder Hyde, a 19th-century LDS apostle and longtime president of the Council of the Twelve under President Brigham Young.
On New Year's Day 1973, Elder and Sister Hunter looked at possible sites for a monument. The break came two years later after Jerusalem officials invited the church to participate in a greenbelt park development surrounding the walls of the Holy City. Elder Hunter reported that the proposed site, on the Mount of Olives, would be the largest single tract in the park.
A foundation was organized to raise funds from private donors, and Elder Hunter traveled to Jerusalem several times to negotiate the contract for the memorial and to oversee construction of the garden, which was dedicated by President Spencer W. Kimball on Oct. 24, 1979.
Then Elder Hunter guided the Jerusalem Center project through years of political, bureaucratic and religious obstacles from design to completion. He made friends for the church among many different groups along the way.
At the time plans were proceeding on the Orson Hyde project, Elder Hunter also searched for a site for that center, which would house the Brigham Young University semester-abroad program and the church's Jerusalem branch and district.
As he explained later to a BYU tour group, "things move slowly" in Jerusalem. "First you design what you want to build. Then you go through a study of the plan and of zoning regulations. Finally, after the plans are approved, the land is leased. Ordinarily this takes 10 years to get where we have gotten in four."
The site favored was one President Kimball had visited when he dedicated the Orson Hyde gardens. After three years of negotiations and lengthy reviews, the Jerusalem District Council approved the plans for the building in September 1983, the proposed lease arrived a few months later, the building permit was issued in December 1984 and construction started the day before Christmas.
But as soon as construction began, opposition by both Jews and Arabs escalated dramatically. "The Jews have a fear that our presence in Jerusalem is a means of proselyting, and the Arabs are concerned because we are building on what they consider to be occupied land," Elder Hunter told the First Presidency after a trip to Jerusalem to try to defuse opposition in February 1985.
The church had agreed, as a condition for building in Jerusalem, not to proselyte. The controversy continued to rage, however, because the protesters refused to accept this assurance. In fact, articles in Jerusalem newspapers called on the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, to rescind permission to proceed with the project.
As the result of the demonstrations and threats of violence, Mayor Teddy Kollek asked for - and received - assurance from the church that a written guarantee be provided that no attempts would be made on campus to convert the Jews of Jerusalem.
When President Hunter returned to Jerusalem in January 1987, the mayor assured him that inspection approvals would be available in a few weeks, permitting BYU students and faculty to move into the completed portion of the building. This move came in March. In May, President Hunter, Elder James E. Faust and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, then BYU president, came to Jerusalem to sign the lease.
And President Hunter refused to let health problems keep him from returning for the center's dedication in May 1989. He also offered the dedicatory prayer.
These projects were just two of President Hunter's endeavors in the Middle East. By 1993, he had visited every Islamic nation - some of them several times. He also had visited the Holy Land more than any other general authority, making some two dozen trips there to conduct church business and meet with heads of state.