In December of 1963, a group of 64 Church members traveled from Tahiti to what is now named the Hamilton New Zealand Temple. Most in the group — made up of the first Tahitian Latter-day Saints to do temple work — had saved for years to be able to make the nearly 5,000-mile round trip. An 84-year-old pearl shell diver from the Tuamotu Islands, for example, had been saving for 30 years for his family's sealing ordinances. (Ellsworth, S. George and Perrin, Kathleen: Seasons of Faith and Courage, pp. 185-186).

The group arrived in Hamilton on Christmas Eve. The temple, viewed through thick fog collected at the bottom of the Hamilton hills, looked as if it were floating. As the Church members got their first glimpse of the temple, they asked the bus driver to stop. Then, with the greatest reverence and respect, every member of the group knelt down on the bus and prayed (Church News interview, 2006). More than 100 years after the first missionaries arrived in Tahiti, modern-day pioneers from the Pacific island nation had finally reached the temple.

In decades prior to the dedication of the Papeete Tahiti Temple on Oct. 27, 1983, thousands of other Tahitian Latter-day Saints followed the example of this first group and sacrificed much to journey outside the Pacific island nation to a temple.

They made the sacrifice because temples are the very center of spiritual strength for Church members.

For most members today, journeys to one of the Church's 128 operating temples do not require the level of sacrifice given by these Tahitian pioneers. However, as Tahitian Latter-day Saints so humbly demonstrated by kneeling in gratitude at the very sight of a sacred temple, the temple deserves the greatest level of reverence we can offer.

President Thomas S. Monson said in a Salt Lake Temple seminar held Aug. 23, 1988, that reverence, more than being quiet, is an attitude of respect. "This is no simple work in which we are engaged — it is a work that affects all eternity," he explained.

Church members show reverence for the temple not only by speaking in tones that invite the Spirit, but also with their dress and grooming, spiritual preparation and attitude.

In essence, it is through our reverence that we show respect for the sacred. "Even [the temple's] external appearance seems to hint of its deeply spiritual purposes," wrote President Boyd K. Packer, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve, in 1995. "This is much more evident within its walls. Over the door to the temple appears the tribute, 'Holiness to the Lord.' When you enter any dedicated temple, you are in the house of the Lord" ("The Holy Temple," Ensign, February 1995, p. 32).

Even Jesus protected that sanctity of the temple, cleansing it and casting out those who did not show reverence for His Father's house. "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer," He said (Matthew 21:13).

"I hope, brethren and sisters, that we will do all we can to cultivate a spirit of reverence always in the House of the Lord," said President Gordon B. Hinckley at the Temple Presidents Seminar, Aug. 22, 1996. "I regret to say that we have so little of it in our meetinghouses. There is little of it even in the homes of the people. The temple is the one place to which our people can go, many of them carrying very heavy burdens, and feel a quiet and wonderful spirit of communion with our Father in Heaven."

Before the temple was constructed and dedicated in Tahiti, one family sold their car and land to earn money to travel to the New Zealand temple in Hamilton. When the money wasn't enough, the family, which included 12 children, sustained themselves on a diet of mainly rice and sugar for almost two years to make up the difference. And when they could not afford enough white fabric to make temple clothing for everyone, they supplemented the cloth by bleaching rice and sugar bags (Church News interview, 2006).

At a time when, for many in the Church, reaching the temple requires little sacrifice, Church members can show their respect for the sacred building with their reverence.