Trust Ye In the Lord For Ever

On October 15, 1977, President Spencer W. Kimball announced plans to build a temple in American Samoa which would serve as a regional temple for members in Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia, and Fiji. The nearest temple to these Saints at the time was the Hamilton New Zealand Temple which was 2500 miles from the furthest of these countries. The site chosen for the temple was near Pago Pago on Tutila Island in America Samoa, and a groundbreaking ceremony was expected to take place in 1978 with completion estimated in 1980. But the groundbreaking was delayed due to difficulties in obtaining the title to the temple site. One article describes how in the meantime “local leaders in the Samoan Islands, Tahiti, Tonga, and Fiji accepted the challenge of raising a portion of the funds and labor for construction.” But then the plans changed: “In April 1980 President Kimball announced temples would be built in Tonga and Tahiti—and in Apia, Samoa—rather than in Pago Pago. Saints in American Samoa had to exercise faith and adjust to this change of temple location.” How disappointed the Saints in American Samoa must have been, especially after raising money to help with its construction! Instead of being in Pago Pago, the new temple would be 125 km away and require a boat or plane to travel to it. The article continued, “Members still contributed generously to the Apia temple’s construction. Eugene Reid, president of the Pago Pago Samoa Stake at the time, was among them. ‘I told my family … we need to do something for the Lord,’ he said.” That showed indeed true faith to still contribute to the temple even when it was no longer in their country. Another article summarized, “When construction of the Apia Samoa Temple commenced in 1981, the Saints in American Samoa were asked to donate their time and means to the effort, just as the Saints in Samoa were doing. ‘I saw the faith of those women who contributed,’ Mote said.” Mote Siufanua served a labor mission and helped with the building of the temple. The Apia Samoa Temple was dedicated on August 5, 1983.

                Though it was apparently not the right time in 1980 to build a temple in America Samoa, the Lord showed that he had not forgotten that people or His original promise to build a temple in Pago Pago. In general conference on April 7, 2019 President Nelson announced new plans to build a temple there. The first article relates, “Although they were honored to serve the Lord in any place, American Samoa’s Saints also hoped Pago Pago might have a temple someday. Almost 30 years later, Church President Russell M. Nelson announced it would. ‘I cried in humility and gratitude for this wonderful blessing,’ Andrew Autele, a stake patriarch in Pago Pago, said. ‘I felt our Heavenly Father’s overwhelming love for our island Saints.’” That temple is now under construction and it is estimated that it will be completed in early 2026, forty-six years after originally anticipated!

This story highlights the need for each of us to have faith in the Lord’s timing and to accept that sometimes the blessings of the Lord do not come when we expect them. All we can do is what the writer of Proverbs encouraged: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Or as Isaiah taught, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). When we do not understand, we must trust that the Lord’s thoughts and ways are indeed higher than ours, and His timing will be perfect even if it feels to us that He is late. Our motto, especially when we feel that our patience for help or blessings from the Lord is running out, must be these other words of Isaiah: “Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength” (Isaiah 26:4). These Saints from America Samoa did just that as they waited decades for their temple, and we can do the same.