The Maori culture of New Zealand runs like a treasured thread through the broader Mormon life and history: How much have we been enriched by the stories of faith relayed by apostle Matthew Cowley? Have you heard the sweet harmony of Latter-day Saint hymns sung in the Maori language? How easily do you recognize the haka when it is performed at a football game, or to welcome home a missionary?

Possibly no one person is more responsible for preserving Maori history and culture – and not just the bits associated with white American missionaries, but the real Maori heritage of art and music and history and genealogy, much of it transmitted only orally until she began her work – than Rangi Parker of Temple View, New Zealand.

This 2013 Newsroom article briefly outlines the work that Sister Parker and her husband Vic Parker have been engaged in.

This week former missionaries in New Zealand are quietly circulating word that Sister Parker is fighting cancer. “Our Society [the New Zealand Missionary Society] is reaching out to all of you faithful friends to unite your faith and prayers and fasting for Sister Parker this coming Saturday and Sunday. Please remember her and Vic as you fast and pray, imploring the Lord for His intervention in Rangi’s behalf.”

Perhaps you would like to remember her during your own fast this weekend.

image: Vic and Rangi Parker, courtesy of the Newsroom (New Zealand).