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The Mou Tham Family Returns to Hamilton New Zealand Temple After 50 Years, September 2023.© 2023 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.After 50 years, the living posterity of a French Polynesian couple has returned to the Hamilton New Zealand Temple for a glorious anniversary celebration of their parents’ lives and legacy.
In 2011, Thomas S. Monson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told their story to a worldwide audience of members and friends of the Church in a televised General Conference.
Tihi and Tararaina Mou Tham were the happy parents of 10 children when they joined the Church in the 1960s in Raiatea, French Polynesia. As new members of the Church they soon had a powerful desire to gain the blessings of an eternal family sealed in the temple.
In a temple sealing, a husband and wife are sealed, or bound together for eternity. Children born into such marriages are also sealed or joined to their families forever. Being sealed as a family is the crowning ordinance of the temple and one of the greatest of God’s blessings for His children.
But getting this ordinance at that time was very difficult. The closest temple was in Hamilton, New Zealand—4000 kilometres (2,500 miles) away from their home.
Tihi knew the family farm’s income was not sufficient to allow the whole family to make the trip. So, in 1969 he decided to go to New Caledonia to work in the mines and earn the needed money for the trip to New Zealand. One of his sons, Émile, was already there, and a year later another son, Gérard, joined them. The rest of the family stayed behind in French Polynesia.
It was not easy for the family during this time. “It was hard for us to be separated. We felt loneliness, struggled with financial problems, and sometimes had frustrations,” daughter, Gisele Tefan, later related about that time.
It took Tihi and his sons four years of hard work to earn the money for the trip. After they had been to the temple, they went back to New Caledonia and worked an additional two years to raise more funds for another daughter to also go to the temple in New Zealand and be sealed to them, as well.
After six years of tremendous effort, the family was finally all sealed together in 1973.
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The Mou Tham Family at the Hamilton New Zealand Temple in Hamilton, New Zealand in 1973.© 2023 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.After this wonderful blessing was obtained, Tihi and Tararaina went on to give many hours of their own service to others in the Papeete Tahiti Temple, the first temple built in the French republic and dedicated in 1983. When they eventually passed away, they left a legacy of a posterity strongly rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ and eternal family values.
In September 2023, fifty years after their first trip to New Zealand, the remaining Mou Tham children and other family members gathered in the Hamilton New Zealand Temple for this incredible anniversary.
“Our family on both sides, my father in New Caledonia and my mother in Raiatea, have unforgettable memories about those times,” shared Gisele, one of the remaining Mou Tham sisters.
“Being here 50 years later, it’s a wonderful way to thank Heavenly Father for the help He gave us to make that dream come true.”
She said the family is united in their thankfulness to their parents for the gospel legacy they gave them, and the example of the work they did in the temple.
“We deeply felt their presence around us, as well as the presence of our beloved ones who are gone,” Gisele explained.
“We are aware of the huge responsibility it is to pass on this legacy to our children, grandchildren, and next generations,” she said. “The light our parents started must stay strong. It will guide our steps on the covenant path leading to our celestial home,” Gisele expressed.
Son, Gérard, didn’t return to Raiatea. Instead, he stayed in New Caledonia, where he has built his own family.
“The blessing of this temple sealing 50 years ago is with me every day of my life,” he said. “It helps me to stay strong in my faith and in the testimony of the true House of the Lord.”
As he attended the temple, he said he also felt his parents’ love there. “I felt their joy to see all their children in the temple so many years after their first visit. I felt Heavenly Father’s love through the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ.”
“It was wonderful to have the opportunity to share our testimonies, our feelings, and our family love with each other,” he reflected.
“My mother used to write to me when I was working in New Caledonia for our family temple project,” Gérard explained. “She would always remind me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon, Alma 34:32-35, where Amulek says: ‘This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God.’"
“I have made this teaching central to my whole life. It is my way to show my love to my parents.”
As President Monson pointed out to a worldwide audience, the Mou Tham family is an example of perseverance and faith in the Lord in two island nations. They stand as an example for future generations.
