Religion: Stake No. 114

For 85 years missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have labored in the Hawaiian Islands. In 1919 President Heber Jedediah Grant went there to dedicate a temple at the village of Laie. Hawaiian Mormons now number 14,000 saints. Last week stubble-bearded, 78-year-old President Grant returned to Salt Lake City after a second visit to Hawaii, during which he organized a new Mormon “stake” (ecclesiastical unit)— the Church’s 114th and its first outside North America. When Heber J. Grant arrived in Honolulu with his trusty First Counselor, heavy-jowled Joshua Reuben Clark, onetime Ambassador to Mexico, the two potent churchmen were given a rousing native welcome, garlanded with lets (see cut). They toured the islands with a party including President Castle H. Murphy of the Hawaii L. D. S. Mission. At Laie they attended a luan, at which President Grant alone used a fork, the others pitching into the food with fingers. At Hilo President Grant planted a banyan tree on a drive where banyans have been planted by Franklin Roosevelt, Vicki Baum, Cecil B. De Mille, Babe Ruth. Sun Fo. In Honolulu they attended a Samoan feast, a Chinese dinner. Then they set up the stake, which embraces 5,000 Mormons on the island of Oahu. Stake president: Ralph E. Woolley, Honolulu contractor. President Grant dedicated the site for a $200,000 stake tabernacle, departed in another burst of alohas.