For nearly seven full decades, the Hamilton New Zealand Temple has served as the first and predominant house of the Lord for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the South Pacific — from Australia and beyond to the 1,000-plus Polynesian islands like New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and French Polynesia as well as the Melanesian islands of Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
Originally named the New Zealand Temple and located just outside the north-central North Island community of Hamilton, this house of the Lord was the Church’s first in the Southern Hemisphere. Built by the sweat and sweet sacrifices of labor missionaries starting in the early 1950s, the temple was dedicated in April 1958 — along with the adjacent Church College of New Zealand — by President David O. McKay.
For the next 25 years, Latter-day Saints from all over the Oceania area saved and sacrificed to travel to Hamilton to make temple covenants and receive the blessings of the endowment and sealing ordinances.