[7] During the California Gold Rush, the first ten Mormon missionaries to Hawaii departed San Francisco on the ship Imaum of Muscat.

[8] While on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, Joseph F. Smith first proposed building a temple in Hawaii during a meeting in Lāʻie on February 15, 1885.

[10] George Q. Cannon, one of the original ten missionaries, visited Lāʻie in 1900 and became revered as a prophet for promoting the idea of a new Hawaiian temple among his congregations.

[6]: 134 In 1915, Joseph F. Smith, then sixth president of the church, announced plans for the first temple outside the contiguous United States and chose Lāʻie for its construction.

[6]: 133–134  According to Mormon folklore, precious materials arrived just in time to complete the building of the temple: Temple builders ran out of wood (a scarce commodity on the islands) during initial construction, but local members received lumber when a ship ran aground and needed to unload some of its cargo of wood.

Moving to Laie gave the Hawaiians the ability to be closer to the new temple and allowed them to perform sacred ordinances without having to travel great distances.

Grant called the Hawaiian people "descendants of Lehi" (a prophet in the Book of Mormon), and saw the future of the new temple in Lāʻie as a magnet for Polynesian converts.

[6]: 135 The 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor gave rise to another popular tale about the Laie Hawaii Temple in church folklore.

According to variations on this story, Japanese aircraft pilots attempted to bomb or strafe the Hawaiian Temple just prior to, or just after, the attack, but were thwarted by mechanical failure or from an unseen protective force.

[13] Although there is an eyewitness who believes he saw the attempted bombing and a former missionary who says he met the Japanese convert, historians have found little supporting evidence that would substantiate these stories.

A $5.5 million renovation, renewal, and beautification project along Hale Laʻa Boulevard leading to the temple began in 2003, lasting 14 months:[15] Norfolk pines suffering from termite infestation were replaced with royal palms, new decorative lighting was added to the terraces, and landscaped roundabouts were put in place.

[16] In December 2008, the Laie Hawaii Temple closed again for structural and seismic upgrades and to restore the ordinance rooms to their original appearance and progressive-style presentation of the endowment (still using film).

Pope and Burton's design was also used for Laie, and their work is rooted in the Prairie style architecture made popular by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the early twentieth-century.

[22] The landscaped temple grounds contain tropical gardens, with plants such as hibiscus, Brazilian plume, birds of paradise, lantana, red ginger, bougainvillea, plumeria, Ixora, and others.