Five leather-bound journals belonging to James Memorial Gibbs have recently come to light, providing a snapshot of life in New Zealand in the early 1900’s from the point of view of a Mormon missionary.
Gibbs was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Zealand from 1903 to 1907.
Carol Reynolds, Gibbs’ grand-daughter, inherited the journals from her grand-mother and decided to transcribe and share the contents with other members of her family. She discovered that he served as a missionary in New Zealand among Maori, travelling by foot, horseback, train and boat to various locations.
Carol never knew her grand-father as he died when she was very young, so transcribing the journals became a unique way for her to come to know him. It took six years, using her spare time, to decipher the difficult writing and the Maori words used in the journals.
Many of the words were misspelled but spelled the way Elder Gibbs — as he would have been known as a missionary — heard them. In order to keep the spirit of who he was, and his personality, she left the spelling unchanged.
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Elder James Memorial Gibbs arrived in Auckland on Monday 16 November 1903 and on 17 November 1903 he wrote of his first experience speaking at a street meeting. “I knew my turn was coming next, I began to shiver and shake. When my turn came I started out on the subject of ‘Faith.’ I don’t know what I said but I know I was awful scared.”
From that early experience, James Gibbs not only overcame his fear of public speaking, but also became fluent in the Maori language, often interpreting for others. One journal entry stated, “Went with Bro Peneha to see the doctor and act as interpreter.”
Climbing and scaling river banks, wading through water “cricks” [creeks] and occasionally swimming or bathing in rivers or walking in ankle deep mud, were regular activities. On some occasions the missionaries took cover under a bush waiting for a storm to pass by before continuing on their way.
The missionaries travelled from town to town holding Sunday worship services and visiting with Church members and others. Referring to one of these occasions, he wrote, “Was kindly received with a hearty hand shake and a noze rub.”
Elder Gibbs' journals show that missionaries in the early 1900’s helped families build barns, fix fences, paint houses, hang curtains, work in gardens and care for the sick. 21st Century Mormon missionaries continue the tradition of community service.
Elder Gibbs' last few days in New Zealand were filled with emotion as he prepared to say goodbye to the people he had come to love. He recorded in his journal, “Spent the evening in karakia [worship service] in which the contents of their heart and soul was poured out in my behalf. Some sheding tears…not excluding my self.”
The next morning he wrote, “We mounted our horses and left them amid waving handkerchieves and calles of haere ra e Hemi, haere ki to kainga [Farewell, James, farewell as you go home].”
In February 2014 Carol Reynolds and her husband Robert travelled to New Zealand from the United States to present transcribed copies of the journals to the Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington Latter-day Saint mission offices and to the New Zealand Church History Centre located in Temple View, Hamilton.
The original journals will be donated to the Church History Library located in Salt Lake City, United States.
“This project has been a labour of love for my wife,” Robert Reynolds says. “She has grown close to her grand-father through this experience though she never knew him personally.”
Read more about Mormon missionaries.