Initially, the two islands were contacted only sporadically by Europeans and Americans up to the later part of the nineteenth century. In 1910 the first three Christian missionaries were killed on Rennell, and the islands were left to themselves until preachers from the Seventh-day Adventists (SDA), the Church of England and the South Seas Evangelical Mission (SSEM) arrived in 1936. They took a group of Rennellese men to mission stations in other parts of the Solomon Islands. In 1938, the Seventh Day Adventist Church became dominant on Rennell, followed by Bellona, which gradually converted all the inhabitants to Christianity. They destroyed all their heathen temples and built Christian churches all over the Islands.