Above photo: Laie Hawaii Temple. Photo provided by Churchofjesuschrist.org
By Eli Hadley
In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, marriage between a man and a woman in the temple is the highest covenant individuals can enter into. When a couple is sealed in the temple under the proper priesthood authority, their union is able to last beyond death, as they covenant to the Lord to love and honor their spouse for time and all eternity. BYU–Hawaii alumni who went through many difficulties to get sealed emphasized the need to focus less on the worldly view of marriage and said size and expense did not matter, only the sealing did.
Difficult Situations
Kyle Vreeken, an alumnus from Laie who graduated with degrees in hospitality/tourism management and marketing, added how getting sealed was worth everything to him and his wife.
Kyle Vreeken met his wife, Irish for the first time when he was a senior at Kahuku High School while they worked together as waiters at Gateway Restaurant. He said he and Irish went on one date before he left on his mission to Bolivia. By the time he returned from his missionary service, Irish had graduated with a degree in English and moved back to her home country of the Philippines to serve her mission.
Through a simple message on Facebook, Kyle Vreeken said he was able to get back in contact with Irish. With the vast distance between Hawaii and the Philippines, the two said they began to fall in love over video calls. “[For] about six months we’re chatting online. We start to get pretty serious, Ten-hour calls and skyping every day. We’re like best friends at that point.”
For his major, Kyle Vreeken needed to complete an internship, while at the same time developing strong feelings for Irish. He said after some searching, he found an internship opportunity in the Philippines. After talking together, the couple decided and knew they wanted to get married. He said they became engaged as he was doing the four-month internship for BYUH in Manila, and began discussing how to make things work.
Due to Irish no longer being a student, Kyle Vreeken said he could not simply bring her to the United States, since that was where they wanted to get married. They would have to apply for the K-1 visa, which permits the foreign-citizen fiancé to travel to the U.S. and marry their American citizen sponsor within 90 days of arrival. After getting married, they could apply for Irish to become a permanent resident in the U.S.
Irish Vreeken said she needed to go through many forms and processes in order to get the K-1 visa so she could travel to Hawaii and marry her fiancé. After Kyle’s internship ended in July 2014, he needed to return home to the U.S., meaning the couple had a year-long engagement without seeing each other in person until their planned wedding date. However, in October 2014, Irish received notice her visa had been approved, and the couple decided to move the date up to January 21st, 2015, setting a date for the sealing in the Laie Hawaii Temple.
Irish Vreeken, an alumna from the Philippines who graduated with a degree in English said although she was excited to get married, the long wait times between receiving essential documents made her nervous, cutting things a little too close.
“And I’m still in the process of finalizing everything for my visa. And I was getting nervous because with the 90-day visa right, you come here for 90 days. But we didn’t have that problem because we were getting married as soon as I got there.”
The two had planned to reunite in Hawaii in December of that year, and spend Christmas and New Year’s together. However, things proved to be a bit more complicated for Irish Vreeken as she navigated the complexity of visa paperwork.
Her final interview for her visa was not scheduled until the middle of Jan. 2015, which made the couple nervous, according to Irish Vreeken. Even if she got approved to travel to the U.S., she said she knew she would have to wait for all of her documents to be sent to her.
After taking required seminars about going to America, Irish Vreeken said the final step she needed was getting a stamp of approval on her visa. “The earliest was Jan. 20th, Philippines time. That’s like 18 hours ahead. I was like ‘fine. This is cutting it close but it’s fine. I’ll be on my way to the airport, I’ll get this seal, and then bye,” she exclaimed, recalling the stress she went through.
“But then, I got the news a week before this that the Pope is coming to the Philippines.” During that same week, the Philippine government decided to close down many facilities, including half of the airport in Manila, as the Pope’s visit was seen as a national holiday.
Shan Arumugam, an alumnus from India who graduated in 2021 with a degree in hospitality and tourism management, said when the COVID-19 pandemic began, he left Laie to do schoolwork in Utah when classes moved to be online. He said it was a shock when everything changed so drastically. While living in Utah, he met his future wife Sara, who was from the city of Lehi, through an online dating app.
“I feel like a lot of people are worried about things, but recently I’ve been watching this talk every single day, by Elder Bednar.” The talk he mentioned was entitled “Quit Worrying About It! Is It the Holy Ghost or Me?” It was given in 2009 by Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the Provo MTC, where he urges listeners to not worry too much if they are unsure if they are not sure a prompting came from them or from the Holy Ghost.
According to Elder Bednar, the best thing someone can do is focus on being a good disciple of Jesus Christ, which includes keeping their covenants. In his talk, Elder Bednar promised that their steps would be guided by the Holy Ghost, and they would be led on the right path.
Tender Mercies
“Usually it’s the wife doing the wedding planning,” Kyle Vreeken said. “I’m the one here trying to find the venue, trying to create invitations, and trying to figure out all the details. It’s not a man’s job,” he added with a laugh.
“We’re trying to coordinate colors and get her dress done. It’s pretty chaotic because we’re planning a wedding in two different countries.
“Mind you, her interview to get this stamp is on the 20th. We’re getting sealed at 8 a.m. on the 21st. So we have her flight booked for the 20th. So she has to get this stamp and go straight to the airport. I booked her flight four or five hours after she was supposed to have this interview. So if there are any delays she’s either gonna miss the flight or not get the stamp.
Back in Manila, Irish Vreeken said she only had three hours before her flight took off, and still, no stamp she needed to fly to the U.S. “It was so stressful. I get there, my flight is in like, three hours.
Podcast excerpt below:
“I get there and the line is all the way out…I was about to cry.” Irish Vreeken said in that moment of stress and uncertainty, she told herself, “no shame. Just go walk in. And everybody’s staring at me. I’m just [telling myself] I’m just gonna ask a question. I go straight to the front desk and tell them ‘I’m getting married tomorrow, literally. And then my flight is in two hours. I’m gonna miss it, because it’s an international flight. Please, I need to get this seal.”
After having to photocopy all her documents, she said she had to take it to another line, but said the fact she got through the process and got the seal was a miracle. In the words of her husband, “the Pope didn’t stop our wedding.”
Because she got held up at Immigration in the Honolulu airport, Kyle Vreeken said he was nervous his wife did not make it while he waited there to pick her up. The same day she arrived on the 20th, the couple got civilly married, which they had to do before five p.m. when the office closed in Honolulu.
“She’s drained from a 16 hour flight, all this chaos going on. My family’s decorating the Laie chapel right here, meeting my wife for the first time ever, meeting her 12 hours before the sealing. But the sealing was beautiful. We made it.”
A miracle Arumugam said he experienced during his wedding was the opportunity he and his wife had to sealed by an apostle. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
Though his family could not be present for the sealing because of travel restrictions, Arumugam said Elder Gong still made a point to know each of their names. The time Elder Gong was finishing his service as part of the Asia Area Presidency was also the time Arumugam was finishing his mission in India. Elder Gong came to his final zone conference, where in his testimony, he told the gathered missionaries he had the authority to seal couples in the temple.
Through a Zoom conference he was a part of as one of his classes, Arumugam encountered a former mission president who had served in India and asked him if he knew Elder Gong. It turned out the two were good friends, and he was able to get Arumugam in contact with the apostle. Arumugam said Elder Gong counseled him and Sara to remember the importance of being faithful to one another in marriage and having a good family.
Even though the pandemic made life difficult for himself and everyone else, Arumugam said he saw things happen for a reason. “It didn’t happen all at once. It happened step by step. But now everything makes sense. Arumugam commented how his only advice to people worrying about marriage and its responsibilities was to stop worrying.
“In the talk, he [Elder Bednar] mentions ‘honor your covenants and keep the commandments.’” He continued saying how covenants such as baptism were not lesser, but preparatory to receiving the highest covenant, being sealed to a spouse for time and all eternity.
Simplicity in Sealing
Reflecting on the sealing, Arumugam said “it feels like it’s a dream still. I mean, especially when you have a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in the room. It’s a special feeling. It’s different. It’s overwhelming.”
Despite all the difficulties he and Irish faced, Kyle Vreeken said “We were just grateful that she was there. And the moment of us there in the temple sealing. That, to us, was the most important thing. Honestly, the reception, to me, didn't even matter at that point. That was a celebration for friends and family…So we kept it simple because, really, we were so grateful that she was even there and that we could be together…That made us even more grateful for the sealing.
“She [Irish] said from the beginning that she wanted it to be intimate. She wanted it to be almost like a small family dinner. I couldn’t wrap my head around that,” Kyle Vreeken said. He added how growing up in Laie had allowed him to see some very large wedding celebrations, with what he described as endless food, entertainment for days, and 500 people in attendance, half of whom he said were usually family.
“I say the sealing, the temple, the actual marriage and union of husband and wife for time and all eternity is for us. The reception and celebration after is for our parents.”
For Arumugam, his wedding festivities were relegated to a small reception after the sealing took place, a move he said his in-laws were very supportive of. “We held our reception in a clubhouse. Afternoon lunch was at the church. Very simple. We probably only spent a couple hundred dollars.
“The world teaches crazy things, like marriage is a thing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on. Yeah you can do it, but you can go spend that money on investments and have a happy life. That money will multiply and bring you financial freedom in your life.
“I think marriage is all about what’s between you and your wife. Relationships matter. You don’t need to show the relationship to the outside world,” he added, citing how social media caused people to feel they needed to put on a show to show other people how happy they were. “The feelings are the true spirit.”
Arumugam acknowledged while social pressure to have a wedding be a large, expensive event did exist, he did not think people should feel pressure to be extravagant. He also said for anyone who felt bad for not getting married yet, things would work out.
He continued how making a wedding into a big, expensive event was “useless. Unless they have a lot of money. But according to me, this is my personal opinion, you don’t need to show off,” he added, saying it was better for any money to be used for car payments or student loans.
Watch the photo slideshow below:
Kyle Vreeken urged “Remember to focus on the sealing. And let temple marriage be the focus. Yes, have the celebration, but don’t let it become the day. Don’t let the reception become the event of that day. Because that holy sealing is what’s being celebrated. Don’t let anything else become a distraction taking away from that sacredness. Don’t make wedding planning the most important thing in your mind.”
“In order to have a good and successful wedding, let your wife make the decisions,” he said in jest, to which Irish Vreeken added it was important for married couples to, “share the burden.”
“And eight years later, and four children later, we’re happily married,” Kyle Vreeken concluded, glancing over at his wife with a smile as she played with one of their happily giggling children.