Pedro and Pita Built Peter Priesthood’s Mansion and Now They Work the Grounds: Whose Masc Does “the Lamanite” Wear?

Authors

Arcia Tecun

Keywords

missionary, Kolipoki, Tonga, Indigenous, chapels

Abstract

The 2001 film The Other Side of Heaven is a dramatization based on John H. Groberg’s book In the Eye of the Storm, featuring his time as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church) in the Kingdom of Tonga, where he was renamed Kolipoki.1 Kolipoki is a White missionary from the United States who is initially assigned to work together with a Brown Indigenous companion Feki Pōuha. Feki cares for and protects his pālangi (foreign) companion by teaching him the language as well as serving as his guide into local culture and customs. Once Kolipoki becomes fluent enough in the language and culture, he is called to be a district president, instructed to call counselors to assist him, and assigned to build a school. Meanwhile, Feki is given a different assignment, as a laborer, who is to continue serving through construction work. In the film, Feki, in humility, says to Kolipoki in his farewell, “I will build all your chapels, and you will fill them.”

BYU ScholarsArchive Citation

Tecun, Arcia (2022) "Pedro and Pita Built Peter Priesthood’s Mansion and Now They Work the Grounds: Whose Masc Does “the Lamanite” Wear?," Mormon Studies Review: Vol. 9: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr2/vol9/iss1/3