'Our son's work goes on beyond the veil'

The parents of a Mormon missionary killed on Friday near Masterton are hoping to speak with the driver of the vehicle that struck their youngest son as he cycled home from delivering a church message.
Elder Joseph Carnovale, 24, died in Wairarapa Hospital within six hours of being struck by a 4x4 vehicle as he cycled with a missionary partner on Norfolk Road about 2pm on Friday.
Mr Carnovale received serious head injuries in the incident and did not regain consciousness before he died in Wairarapa Hospital on Friday night, his parents Paul and Lyn Carnovale said on Monday as they prepared to return to their Sydney home.
The couple are hoping to speak from Australia with the driver of the vehicle and said the body of their youngest son will return home within the week.
Elder Gregory Mudrow, who was cycling beside Mr Carnovale when he was hit, agreed with an incident account the driver of the 4x4 gave to police that his mission partner drifted into the path of the utility that was travelling in the same direction, as it was driven wide of the cyclists.
Mr and Mrs Carnovale arrived in the country on Saturday, they said, and drove to the scene of the collision and have spoken about their son and the incident with Elder Mudrow and the family the missionaries were visiting that day.
Mr Carnovale senior said the missionaries had been delivering a church DVD on Friday to the family, who told the couple "Joseph and Elder Mudrow were their angels".
"He was doing the Lord's work right to the very end and we believe he was called to carry on that work beyond the veil."
Mr Carnovale said the couple last spoke with their son on Mother's Day although he wrote and emailed home weekly and they now also have his diary that accounts for the time during his mission.
He said his son was a state representative soccer player and track athlete and an advanced skier who had also scaled Mera Peak, which is the highest non-technical climb in Nepal.
His son had also toured and skied through Europe, visited ground zero a year after terrorists attacked the twin towers in New York, and also worked as a camp counsellor in North America.
Mr Carnovale said his son also won acknowledgement two years running as the best academic and athletic all-rounder at his high school and was deemed the top student in his final year.
"He was a terribly accomplished young man for his age who led a very full life in his short years. It is very sad that this has happened but we believe his death freed him from limits he may have had to endure if he had lived; and that his work as a missionary goes on still."
Mr Carnovale said his son had arrived in New Zealand in April for his two-year mission and was a district leader in Wairarapa after starting his term in Rangiora.
A memorial service was held for Mr Carnovale at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints chapel in Masterton on Saturday evening that was attended by about 100 church members, Bishop James Aporo said.
He said a man to whom Mr Carnovale had spoken several times during the year had committed himself at the memorial service to being baptised "as a result of the spirit and power at the service" and the earlier ministrations of Mr Carnovale.
New Zealand Wellington Mission president Michael Finnigan said there are now 160 missionaries serving two-years terms throughout the lower North Island and the entire South Island who are administered out of the Wellington mission home.
There are also missionaries working from an Auckland mission home, he said, and a missionary being killed while on a mission is "a very rare thing".
"I visited with Elder Carnovale only a week before he was killed and he was loving it here in New Zealand. He told me his mission was the best experience of his life."
Mr Carnovale had been working out of the Featherston branch of the church, Mr Finnigan said, and another missionary is to take up the position within the next week.
He said that of 53,000 missionaries serving at any given time around the world, up to five are killed each year while on their mission.