Tarawa Kiribati Temple
In the final session of the 190th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russell M. Nelson announced plans to construct a temple in Tarawa, Kiribati. The Tarawa Kiribati Temple will be the first temple built in Kiribati and the second built in Micronesia, following the Yigo Guam Temple (2021).
On 19 May 2021, the location of the Tarawa Kiribati Temple was announced as a 0.80-acre site located at Ambo, South Tarawa, Kiribati. It will stand across from the Kiribati House of Parliament. An official exterior rendering for the temple was also released on 19 May 2021.
Plans call for a single-story temple of approximately 10,000 square feet with an end-spire. A new meetinghouse and patron housing facility are included for the site. Additional ancillary facilities will be located 450 meters west of the temple site.
Kiribati — pronounced “KEE-ruh-bas” — is a nation composed of 32 atolls and one island with half of the population living on Tarawa atoll where Church-operated Moroni High School is located. There are nearly 21,000 Kiribatian Latter-day Saints, approximately one-sixth of the population, belonging to two stakes and three districts. The Saints of Kiribati currently travel well over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) to participate in ordinance work at the Suva Fiji Temple.
Church roots trace back to local school teacher Waitea Abiuta asking if his graduates could attend Liahona High School in Tonga, with the request approved in 1972. Abiuta and several students converted to the Latter-day Saint faith, and the students later served as Kiribati’s first missionaries, in October 1975.
The first constructed meetinghouse was completed in 1984, and the late Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles organized the first stake in 1996.
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Groundbreaking Held
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Tarawa Kiribati Temple took place Saturday, November 2, 2024, signaling the start of the construction phase for a new house of the Lord on a remote Pacific island.
The temple will serve the more than 28,000 Latter-day Saints in the two island nations — the Republic of Kiribati and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, both comprised of coral atolls, island chains and islets. Church members there currently have to travel to the closest houses of the Lord in Fiji and Hawaii to participate in temple worship and ordinances. Elder Jeremy R. Jaggi, a General Authority Seventy and Second Counselor in the Pacific Area Presidency, presided at the event.
- “Today’s breaking of the ground is symbolic of planting a giant coconut or breadfruit seed. It will produce the greatest harvest we have seen or can conceive for generations to come,” said Elder Jaggi in his remarks.
- “Settlers came to these islands thousands of years ago. They may have come to find a more peaceful place. They may have come for more freedom. They may have come because the rocky reefs provide more protection from the storms and the king tides.
- “The temple that will be built in this spot will provide great protection from the storms of life,” Elder Jaggi promised.
- Elder Jaggi was accompanied by his wife, Sister Amy Jaggi. Elder Iotua Tune, an Area Seventy in the Pacific Area, conducted the services, which were broadcast live to people gathered in meetinghouses across Kiribati.
- President Taneti Maamau, president of Kiribati, and first lady Teiraeng Maamau attended the groundbreaking, with the Kiribati president offering remarks. In his address, President Maamau said, “The longstanding partnership between the government and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has allowed us to nurture faith, build communities and ensure peace and security for our people.”
- The president shared that during his visit with President Russell M. Nelson in 2018, he had requested that a temple for Kiribati be considered because he was concerned that “when our people get married, [and seek] the sacred blessings of the [temple], they normally travel to Fiji or to Tonga.”
- He expressed appreciation that Church leadership had authorized and approved the building of the temple in Tarawa. “At last God has blessed us with a mandate to see the faith and the spirit of the Holy God working through our people,” President Maamau said.
- Other guests included Willie Tokataake, speaker of the house; Karen Bray, Australian high commissioner; André van der Walt, New Zealand high commissioner; and Zhou Limin, Chinese ambassador.[1]
See also
External Links
- Official Tarawa Kiribati Temple page
- Tarawa Kiribati Temple page
- What is the Purpose of the Temple
- What Are Temples?
- Mormon Missionary Work - Lightplanet
- Joseph Smith - Prophet of the Restoration
- Moroni High School: An educational model
