The church and missionary work have a long history in Hawaii beginning with the arrival of a group of missionaries in 1850 that included George Q. Cannon. This page isn't intended to go into that. There are number of sources on the internet where you can learn much about the history of the church in Hawaii. One I have run across is an excellent brief history, located here, that was written by R. Lanier Britsch. There is also a great deal that can be learned by reading from the many papers (available here,) presented over the years at conferences of the Mormon Pacific Historical Society.
The primary purpose of this page is to let those who are interested know a little bit about the church and the mission the way they exist in Hawaii today (or at least the way it recently was.) Feel free to update me on items that are out of date by submitting a comment.
The Hawaii Honolulu Mission encompasses the entire state of Hawaii as well as 11 islands in the North Pacific. Within the state of Hawaii, the mission is broken into eleven zones (see map below). Of those zones, seven are on Oahu. The bulk of the population of Hawaii lives on Oahu, and the church has 10 stakes on Oahu. The stakes and zones match up one for one with the exception of the Laie zone. Laie is where BYU-Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center, and the Hawaii temple are located. It is also (not surprisingly) where the highest concentration of church members can be found. There are two student stakes and two regular stakes located in this zone. The majority of the missionaries serving in the Laie zone are sisters who are assigned to the Visitor's Center.
The Maui zone is unique in the fact that it covers three islands. There is one branch on the island of Lanai, and two wards on the island of Molokai that are part of the Maui stake and zone.
Missionaries assigned to serve on Molokai or Lanai get a rare experience, although most missionaries have an opportunity to serve "off island" (on any island other than Oahu) at least once.
With regard to the 11 islands of the North Pacific that fall within the mission, only 2 have branches of the church. Christmas Island in the Republic of Kiribati is part of the mission and, as of last report, the branch there is doing so well that in addition to the missionary couple that has been assigned there for several years, a pair of elders have recently been assigned as well. Johnston Island also has a dependant branch which is directed by the mission.
The mission "officially" teaches in nine languages (as of last report,) but the bulk of the missionaries called are English speaking. The other eight languages are Tongan, Samoan, Ilocano, Tagalog, Japanese, Mandarin, Marshallese, and Korean. While missionaries are called to teach in these languages, there are usually not very many serving (only 1 or 2 for some languages) and they rarely have a companion who has been called to teach in the same language.
This page last updated September 17, 2005.
Zones of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission
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