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In 2011, academics and authors David Pulsipher and Patrick Mason both attended an academic conference on the subject of the Mormon perspective on war and peace. Pulsipher said it was when they went out to get yogurt that he proposed writing a book about how the restored gospel supports peace efforts. The finished work “Proclaim Peace: The Restoration’s Answer to an Age of Conflict” was the centerpiece of the Proclaim Peace Academic Conference held at BYU–Hawaii’s campus and sponsored by the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

As Proclaim Peace conference attendees walked into the Aotearoa Village at the Polynesian Cultural Center on the last day of the three-day event, they witnessed a rare Maori ceremony that BYU–Hawaii alumnus Seamus Fitzgerald said he had only seen twice in this lifetime. After the attendees were seated, Fitzgerald and Aotearoa Village Manager Kim Makekau did a call and response oration in Maori. Conference attendees said there was a tangible spirit in the air that they felt.