Celebration as church’s new temple opens

There are few buildings in Auckland as jaw-dropping as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ (LDS) new temple.

The massive structure is rising high on a hill overlooking the Southern Motorway on Redoubt Road in Manukau and took five years to build.

It was designed by Walker Community Architects and built by Westland Construction NZ.

LDS members consider their temples to be a “house of the Lord” and the most sacred place of worship on Earth.

Their primary purpose is for faithful church members to participate in sacred ceremonies, such as marriages.

On February 24 the temple’s doors were opened to news media for a walk-through and the chance to talk to senior church leaders including General Authority Seventies member Elder Steven Bangerter, Elder Brett Nattress, and Elder Peter Meurs, the church’s Pacific area president.

LDS members carry out a two-year overseas “mission”, and Meurs, who’s Australian, served part of his mission in Howick when he was 20 years old.

He says temples are “houses of the Lord, places where Heaven and Earth meet, and where individuals and families come to worship, pray, feel God’s love, and learn of Jesus Christ”.

The new temple is designed to be a place of peacefulness and contemplation and that’s obvious throughout.

In every room of the multi-storey building are paintings or furniture or other objects to stop and ponder.

The design features numerous motifs familiar to Kiwis including of kowhai, Pohutukawa, manuka, kauri, and silver fern.

Its blue and green interior colours represent the paua shell, with accents of gold.

The floor is white marble and the carpets are 100 per cent New Zealand wool.

There are numerous large paintings depicting Bible scenes, glittering crystal chandeliers hanging in multiple rooms, a large pool for baptisms, dressing rooms for changing into white clothing, and stunning stained-glass windows.

One space allows church members to watch videos telling LDS stories while nearby the high-ceilinged “Celestial Room” is intended to be a place of quiet contemplation.

There’s also a room for brides to get changed into their wedding gown as well as a room specifically for couples to be “sealed” to each other in marriage.

Speaking to the Times following the tour, Meurs says his parents joined the LDS church when he was a baby and the family was living in a country town in Victoria, Australia.

He went on to study engineering and worked in the sector for 45 years, including on large projects in New Zealand in the oil and gas industry.

“I came here every quarter to help manage those,” he says.

“I did a lot of big projects in oil and gas and minerals. In the church I’ve always been a volunteer and had different responsibilities.

“Nearly 10 years ago I was called to be a General Authority of the church and then became full-time for the church. My service ends when I’m 70, which is next year.”

Meurs says he worked for the church anywhere he was assigned, which has included five years in Asia.

“We were based in Hong Kong and were in the all the Asian countries, then two and a half years ago I was assigned to the Pacific. Our headquarters are in Auckland.

“I travel around the region with my wife Maxine, so we’re visiting all the islands.

“We’re [the church] doing interesting things in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. We do a lot of humanitarian work.

“All of our members and leaders are volunteers, so we do a lot of training. We’ve got about 600,000 members in the Pacific.

“And we spend a fair bit of time in Australia and New Zealand as well.”

When he was serving his mission in Howick as a young man, Meurs says he had no idea he would one day be back in Auckland to help open his church’s new temple.

“I had no concept of that at all. I had first-year engineering before my mission and didn’t know where that would take me.

“All the things that have happened since then have been quite amazing.

“I’m so delighted things have turned out as they have and I get to be here for this glorious day when there’s a temple in Auckland.

“It’s such a blessing. We have a lot of members going to Hamilton using that temple, but it’s running to capacity and it’s quite hard to get a booking to get in there.

“This temple opens up a lot more capacity and people will be delighted instead of travelling two hours to Hamilton, most often, they can just come here, so it’s a real blessing.”

Once the new temple is dedicated at a ceremony in April, only faithful members of the LDS church will be able to enter it.

People can take part in free 30-minute tours of the building, which must be booked in advance, until March 22.