Apr 29, 2016 Book of the Week, after a conversation with a reader — Ka buke o na berita amen a kauoha

“A eia kekahi, i kona heluhelu ana, ua hoopihaia oia me ka Uhane o ka Haku.”

KA BUKE O NA BERITA AMEN A KAUOHA
San Francisco, 1855
First edition

The first missionary work in Hawai’i for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began in 1850, when Charles Rich called for the establishment of a mission on what was then known as the Sandwich Islands. Of the ten men that answered the call, five remained after several months. The first conversions came on the island of Maui on August 6, 1851. By 1854, more than four thousand native islanders had converted.

The Book of Mormon was translated into Hawaiian by Elders George Quayle Cannon, William Farrer, and Jonatana H. Napela, a Hawaiian native. It was published five years after the first Mormon missionaries arrived on the islands. Three thousand copies were printed in San Francisco, two hundred of these were bound. Nearly all of the copies were shipped to Hawai’i. Most of these were destroyed in a fire in 1868. An estimated 30 copies of the 1855 edition survive today.

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