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 Week 29

Temple Open House Media and Invited Guests

2 March 2025


This week was amazing! We feel very blessed for the experiences of this week. It was beautiful to watch  what "The House of the Lord" (instead of temple) can do for the members, the community, and media. We have been working for months on the temple open house committee to insure this last week went well and gratefully the Lord mades things happen in His timing and in His way.  

 



Monday was media day. There is always some excitement when working with the media because you never know exactly what you are going to get.  We had media from all over New Zealand come. We also invited media from Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea who will have temples dedications next year. (We wanted them to experience and prepare for what is coming to their islands.) You cannot imagine how much coordination it takes to arrange all the flights, visits, interviews, etc. We spent weeks leading up to the event arranging for media interviews with Church leaders, members, doing historical research on their questions, doing media training for members that were to be interviewed, and coordinating the release of the stories.  Miracles happened every day and media day was a great event.




Members of New Zealand Parliament. They loved their cubed crystal statues. They were kind of cheap looking to me.:l



Muslim and Jewish leaders in Auckland. They are part of an inter-faith coalition that attended together. They walked around together like they were best buds.


Kelly:  Tuesday and Wednesday was invited guests. Two days are set aside for those not of our faith that are political, inter-faith, corporate, dignitaries, leaders, etc., to have an extended tour of the temple with a General Authority and stake presidents as the tour guide. Once the tour was over they brought them back to the cultural hall and the guides would introduce us and we would then visit with the group as the guides  would go back to do another tour.   We feel very blessed to be apart of this amazing experience. We marveled at what these individuals experienced and how they tried to express what they felt. They didn't have words to explain the spirit they were feeling.  We have countless stories we could tell about miracles that day.  Just one of our favorites was the leader of UNICEF in New Zealand.  She had lost her father 4 months earlier. Each group was given 5 minutes of complete silence in the Celestial Room. We know this person from some of our Giving Machine work. When she saw us she came up and just started crying and was struggling to speak. We asked her what happened and she said, "I can't explain it, but when I was in your Celestial Room, I know my father was standing right next to me.   I could feel his presence and I know it was him."   

Launette:  As we talked with guests, we generally asked them 3 questions to get them talking and basically bear testimony of what they experienced. We asked them:

  • -How did you enjoy they temple?
  • -What was your favorite room?
  • -What did you feel in the temple?

Their answers sometimes brought tears to my eyes. They were unsure how to express their feelings, but everyone felt. Some of their responses were:

  • "Elevated, above the ground."
  • "My heart kept beating hard."
  • "Confused because I'm a scientist and I don't believe in God."
  • "Divine presence."
  • "Far from the world."
  • "Absolute stillness and peace."
  • "Calm and peaceful."
  • "I felt my father."

I remember someone teaching me that I should have a relationship with all 3 members of the Godhead. I feel like a have a pretty good relationship of the my Heavenly Father and the Savior, but this week I was able to gain more of an understanding and appreciation for the Holy Ghost. I watched him touch, inspire, enlighten, teach, and brighten everyone, including me. 





We have got to tell you about Paul who is not a member of the Church. (No picture. I didn't have the heart.) Paul was part the visiting neighborhood group. He was sitting on the couch when I approached him. He told me that he and his wife have been watching the temple construction for 5 years. He said his wife really wanted to visit the temple but she died suddenly 9 months ago. To please his wife, Paul showed me that he brought his wife with him to the temple, as he patted his backpack. He said he had a lovely experience with her in the celestial room. He then said, as it was all connecting together for him, "Well of course if you believe in God then you believe in life after. And if you believe in life after, then you believe we will get to be with the people we love."  He was so sweet.

We had to put this picture in the blog. We also attended an all Maori sacrament meeting this week because one of the reporters we were working with from a Maori TV channel attended and we were asked to arrange interviews after the sacrament meeting.  One of the members pulled up on this motorcycle. You have to love the message.






These women were from the Cook Islands. Elder Meurs gave them a tour and aftwards they sat and visited and then broke into spontaneous folk songs from their country. It was beautiful.   



This picture will be a memorable picture for us. This is Jane Joshua. She is the editor for the Vanuatu national newspaper and not a member of the Church.  We met with her when we were in Vanuatu and invited her to the Temple Open House. She agreed to come. If you recall from our previous blogs, a day after we left her country, they experienced a major earthquake that destroyed most of the downtown. Vanuatu is a country that has very few modern conveniences and significant poverty.  We arranged flights and lodging for her and she had a wonderful experience.  She was so overwhelmed by the temple and the experience that when the tour was done she asked if she could just sit alone on the temple grounds.  

We arranged to take her back to her hotel and she asked if we could stop at a mall on the way.   We stopped at a nearby mall and she spent about an hour buying clothes and souvenirs.  When we got back in the car she explained that she was buying clothes for her mother and extended family because the earthquake destroyed most of the retail in town. She is a wonderful person and we are very grateful we met her and had a chance to be a part of her temple experience.

After both days we came home spiritually and physically exhausted from standing on our feet for 10 hours, but completely exhilarated also.

Next week we have a our Area Communication Seminar. We are praying that all goes well with the details and presentations. We are bringing together many different personalities and experiences. I hope they all can learn from each other... through the Spirit.

We love and miss you,

Elder and Sister Shaw


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