In 1955, McKay visited the South Pacific, retracing some of the steps of his 1921 world tour. He met with a small group of church members in Fiji, where the church had never done any missionary work because of the Negroid appearance of the Fijians. Noting that the "race problem would be no worse than in South Africa or Brazil," he instructed the president of the adjacent Samoan Mission to explore the possibility of beginning proselytizing efforts in Fiji. He later instructed Wendell Mendenhall, chairman of the Church Building Committee, and Edward L. Clissold, president of Oahu Stake, to investigate the relationship of the Fijians to other Polynesian groups (none of whom were under priesthood restrictions), with the clear intent of determining if the ban on priesthood would extend to Fijian men. Following a trip to New Zealand four years later, he reported to his counselors that "there is evidence that [Fijians] are not of the Negroid races" and authorized their ordination to the priesthood, thus narrowing the ban to blacks of African origin.