In the current Hollywood tradition, the film “The Other Side of Heaven” about the missionary experiences of a young Idaho Falls man in Tonga released in 2001 is getting a sequel.

“The Other Side of Heaven 2: Fire of Faith” follows John Groberg 10 years after the events of the first movie when he and his family — wife and young daughters — are called to serve as a mission president in Tonga for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“The story is mostly about my son who was born there in Tonga,” Groberg said. “He had some congenital health problems that the country was not prepared to handle and he was too weak to travel back to the U.S. for care. The entire nation fasted and prayed and he recovered enough to get on a plane and go to Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah where he recovered.”

Disney film director Mitch Davis said he was encouraged by Groberg to make the sequel, to tell the complete story of the missionary experience.

“He came to me and said, ‘I’m not getting any younger, and neither are you, so it’s time,’” Davis said, according to IMDb movie website.

Viki Groberg Bailey, John Groberg’s daughter who lives in Ammon, said the first movie was taken from her father’s book about his missionary experiences and the second film is from his second book “Fire of Faith” about his return to Tonga.

“The entire nation of Tonga, all the people of every faith united in fasting and praying for that little boy’s life,” Davis told the Deseret News.

“So the message of this movie, I think you’ll be surprised how ecumenical it is, it’s not a Mormon movie at all. It’s a broader movie about faith and love.”

Groberg said the queen of Tonga also fasted and prayed for his son.

“She was kind of the instigator of it,” he said. “The experience shows the power of prayer, the power of faith and the power of family.”

Christopher Gorham returns from the first movie to play Groberg, but Natalie Medlock replaces Anne Hathaway as Groberg’s wife Jean. Hathaway was a relative unknown during the making of the first film and has since gone on to become an Academy Award winning star. She was deemed too expensive for this film. Medlock is a New Zealand actress who has starred in the TV series “Shortland Street.”

Actor Russell Dixon will portray Thomas S. Monson in the movie. Monson, an apostle for the LDS Church, was assigned to the South Pacific region during Groberg’s time as mission president.

According to news reports, Davis said he was initially hesitant to make a sequel to the first movie, unsure he would have a sufficient budget to do the story justice. But thanks to a Fijian 47 percent tax rebate for films made within the country, he was able to move forward with the project. The film was shot in Fiji.

“I haven’t seen the movie yet,” Groberg said, “but I’ve read the screenplay. The writer wrote a compelling story. I don’t have very much to do with it other than I wrote the original book.”

Bailey, who is child No. 10 of 11 in the Groberg family, isn’t part of the story, “but I’m all right with that,” she says.

Groberg, who lived for decades in Idaho Falls, still has brothers and sisters in eastern Idaho, and now lives with his wife Jean in Bountiful, Utah.

The film is due in theaters June 2019.