A team of missionaries and other volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are working this week to finish installing 280,000 coloured light bulbs in trees around the grounds of the Hamilton New Zealand Temple.
The temple grounds, on Tuhikaramea Road, will be aglow in colourful Christmas lights beginning this Saturday, 12 December, at 8:30 p.m.
Organisers of the Christmas display and Visitors’ Centre events are hoping that the number of visitors this year will exceed last year’s attendance of over 40,000.
It will be brighter and more spectacular, according to Kelly Pere, who is helping to set up the display.
“Where last year there were five strands of lights on a tree some will now have 50, 60 or even 100.”
“But the annual lighting program is more than a stunning display of beautiful lights,” according to Ronald K. Hawkins, director of the Temple Visitors’ Centre. “The entire temple grounds, at the Nativity, and here in the Visitors’ Centre, are the place to feel the true spirit of Christmas.”
“Celebrating the birth of Christ at the Temple Visitors’ Centre will include the Christus statue, a new Nativity artwork display and a new short video, ‘A Savior is Born,’” he said.
This year the life-sized Nativity will be placed in the centre garden below the temple.
The lights will be on from 8:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. from 12 December to 31 December. The Visitors’ Centre is open 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily. The public is invited and admission is free.
For details about the lighting program, including a schedule of special choir performances and a public Christmas carol sing-a-long on the plaza outside the Visitors’ Centre, visit: www.facebook.com/nztemplechristmaslights.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has 162 temples worldwide, 10 of which are in the South Pacific region.