The Hawaiian Temple, the first to be built in a land far from the headquarters of the Church, was evidence of leaders' faith that the Church would expand in the Pacific "among Father Lehi's children."

In 1850, the Church was established on Hawaii, or the Sandwich Islands as they were then called. And, during the trying times of the latter half of the 19th century, Hawaiian saints remained faithful. They hungered for the blessings of a temple.Eventually, a few Hawaiian saints even colonized in the west Utah desert.

One leader who long understood their desire for a temple was Joseph F. Smith. Young Joseph, at age 15, was called on a mission to Hawaii in 1854. At that time the islands were far from being a resort paradise as it is perceived today. In the 1850s, Elder Smith and other missionaries lived in primitive conditions. While laboring on the island of Molokai in 1857, he came down with a serious illness. He had a high fever that ran for days, and he lay debilitated for three months.

During this time a faithful sister, Ma Mahuhii, nursed the young man as if he were her own son.

His affection for her was demonstrated years later when he returned in 1915 as president of the Church to dedicate a site for a temple. With him was Presiding Bishop Charles W. Nibley. The visitors were loaded with beautiful flower leis, "he, of course, more than anyone else," Bishop Nibley recalled. "It was beautiful to see the tearful affection that these people had for him."

In the midst of the reception entered a 90-year-old blind woman with a few bananas clutched in her hands for a present. She called, "Iosepa, Iosepa! (Joseph! Joseph!)"

"Instantly when he saw her, he ran over to her and clasped her in his arms," said Bishop Nibley.

President Smith died before the completion of the Hawaiian Temple in 1919. But his beloved nurse, Ma Mahuhii, lived to receive her endowments in the new temple. A week afterward, she asked that E. Wesley Smith, son of the late prophet, visit her. When he came, she groped for his hand, kissed it and wept.

"It is enough," she said in Hawaiian. "I am ready to go now." She died the next morning. Ma Mahuhii is just one of the multitude of Lehi's children blessed by having a temple in their own land. - John L. Hart

(Another in a series of "Temple Moments." Source: "Joseph F. Smith," by Francis M. Gibbons; and "Unto the Islands of the Sea," by R. Lanier Britsch. Illustration by Deseret News artist Reed McGregor.)