Many who grew up in the area have fond memories of listening to beautiful choirs while walking around the amazing Christmas lights display in Temple View each year.
After a four-year pause due to renovations of the temple and COVID, the choir music and the lights are back.
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- Elder-Peter-Meurs-with-Tama-Potaka
- Temple-View-Christmas-Lights-Choir
- Temple-View-Christmas-Lights-participants
| Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. | 1 / 2 |
On 16 December, Elder Peter F. Meurs, General Authority Seventy and President of the Pacific Area of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, opened this year’s “Temple View Christmas Lights” event by welcoming community guests including Hamilton West Member of Parliament Tama Potaka.
The 2023 event unfolded at the Gerald R. Biesinger Building at Legacy Park in Temple View, where all in attendance enjoyed the captivating Christmas music performed by the Glenview Stake (a stake is a group of congregations) choir.
As the surroundings were bathed in the gentle glow of the seasonal lights, Elder Meurs invited all present to embrace the true spirit of Christmas and seek the message of Jesus Christ during this joyous season.
Elder Meurs referred to how we love to use lights and decorations on Christmas trees as part of our Christmas traditions. He then shared scriptures about the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi’s dream about “the tree of life” and how he partook of the fruit which was sweeter than anything he had ever tasted.
“Lehi said the fruit was white, to exceed all the whiteness that he had ever seen,” Elder Meurs said.
He continued: “Lehi’s son, Nephi, wanted to understand his father’s dream. After pondering and praying, an angel showed Nephi the mother of Jesus Christ in a vision. He described her as most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. He then saw Mary bearing a child in her arms, and the angel said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father.’”
“From this experience,” Elder Meurs said, “Nephi understood that the tree of life represented the love of God–how God’s gift of His Son Jesus Christ is the greatest of all gifts and that we can all partake of the sweet fruit of the tree by following Jesus Christ.”
Elder Meurs invited visitors to Temple View this Christmas season to remember, as they see the beautiful lights, that they are symbols of the greatest gift to all mankind–even Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour and Redeemer of the world.
The annual Temple View Christmas Lights, a symbol of festive cheer in the community established with the construction of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple and the Church College of New Zealand in the 1950’s, illuminate each night at 8:45 p.m. until 31 December.
Each evening, local choirs will perform Christmas hymns until Christmas Eve, at 8:15 pm and 9:00 pm.
For further details and to stay updated on this year’s event, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/nztemplechristmaslights.
Find more ways to celebrate Christmas this year at LightTheWorld.org