Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA  — Maea Fepuleai understood the honor, the opportunity and the stakes. He felt equal to all of those challenges.

But it was the scale of the project that was intimidating. It was bigger than anything he’d ever done and bigger than anything he’d ever dreamed of doing.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had come to him because he had previously led the landscaping efforts for a few meetinghouses in American Samoa.

“But this wasn’t a chapel,” he said. “This was a temple. It’s the most sacred building in our faith. To me, it is the most sacred building on my island.”

At first, Fepuleai told church officials that he simply couldn’t do it.

“It’s really just me and my wife, and it was just too great for us — the volume of work was different than anything we had ever done before,” he said. “But they asked me to go home and think about it overnight.”

He prayed — more and harder than he ever had in his life.

“And ultimately we came to the conclusion that the Lord would help us through this,” Fepuleai said. “Somehow, some way, we would figure it out.”

He’s now seeing the fruits of his faith. Over the past few months, Fepuleai has been moving hundreds of plants and dozens of trees from a steep, hillside nursery to the village of Tafuna, where the global faith’s soon-to-be first temple in this South Pacific U.S. territory is nearly complete.

The church has not yet said when it will open, but it has confirmed that the temple’s president in waiting, Tuputausi May Asayo Hirata Hunt, will begin his service no later than September.

Fepuleai is already proud — literally beyond words. “In English, I don’t have a way to adequately express what it feels like to see it coming together,” he said. “It’s nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”

Yet when the single-spired, single-story, 17,000-square-foot temple officially opens later this year, he already knows that he will somehow be even prouder — not only because of what he did for his church but also what he did for his 17,000 or so fellow Latter-day Saints in American Samoa (more than a third of its overall population).

‘THE DREAM OF ALL OF US’

With per capita income is still less than half of the poorest U.S. states. And lacking economic resources, many Latter-day Saints here simply cannot afford to get to a temple very often, if at all.

“With plane tickets, food and lodging — and sometimes, if our bosses don’t understand this obligation, we can’t get off work — there’s simply no way for many families, especially larger families,” said Selesitila Falesui, who heads up the family history ministry in his Latter-day Saint ward, or congregation. “Now, those barriers are about to be removed. This really is the dream of all of us.”

It was a dream that had almost been realized in the late 1970s. That’s when Spencer Kimball, then the church’s president, announced that the bustling harbor city of Pago Pago, in American Samoa, would be one of several locations in the South Pacific receiving a temple. Later, however, the church decided to shift its plans to Apia, the capital and largest city of the independent nation of Samoa, which has nearly 90,000 Latter-day Saints, meaning American Samoans would have to take a short 100-mile plane flight or long boat ride to engage in temple rites.

 Analosa Vele said one of the greatest blessings for Latter-day Saints is becoming a temple ordinance worker — a volunteer who helps administer sacred ceremonies, give directions, coordinate sealings, distribute ceremonial clothes or simply open doors.

“That’s obviously a role that isn’t available if you don’t live close to a temple,” Vele said, “and I think a lot of people here are looking forward to being able to contribute to our church in that way.”

She is overjoyed to know that it will be easier for future Latter-day Saints in American Samoa.

“Having a temple right here,” she said, “is a blessing beyond measure.”