I can't believe it's 2 weeks since I updated. Where has this year gone? Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes in the post or on facebook.  Here are the 2 emails from 23rd and 30th July. We will be on holiday next week so I will be posting 2 emails the week after as I don't think the campsite has Internet and our laptop is on it's last legs so not worth the space in the car!

23rd
Hey Guys!!!

howdy diddley doo! man my first email as a twenty year old :P, This week has been pretty good, we've mostly done service, my back hurts from moving someone accross the street and playing Oz tag (tag Rugby) and someone's lawn broke our lawnmower hahaha. My birthday was really good I didn't tell many people till the day so it was a kinda off the cuff thing,  Sister Tupaitau got me a cheesecake from the cheesecake shop and we went to Macdonalds after practicing for a fireside which I'm singing at. It was great spending time with the Branch President  and family and some other few, we had the cake at the Orro's the day after because we always go to their house for dinner on Thursday. Oh also thank you for the package it arrived this morning mmmm minstrels, send my love to everyone in the Alnwick branch. I really liked the cards from the priesthood and the pen is lovely, thank you.

well anyhoo, thanks for all your emails and whatnot I loves you all,  bye!
Elder John Kay. xxxx

30th
This week was good, we were mostly seeing less actives again but we did contact some people and gave them a pass along card and told them to visit the website. They aren't in our area, well, they technically are, they live in Ayr (a town with it's own branch about an hour south of here) but they dont have missionaries so it's kind of in our area, but we never go there. We would love to get floating missionaries in a town called Bowen about 2 and a half hours south that can cover Bowen and Ayr and Airley Beach (which is in the Bowen branch - called the Whitsunday branch) everything is just so spread out.  Elder Latu and I went to Bowen yesterday (Sunday), they are a small branch who are mostly Tongan but most of them were working yesterday. I think one of the biggest challeges is reactivation.


I hope everyone is doing well

love Elder Kay

18th July 2012
It's Elder Kay's birthday today. Or I should say it was as it is already 19th July in Australia. He is going to tea with Sister Orro and family and she is going to bake him a birthday cake. I emailed her a list of all the people who wished him a Happy Birthday on Facebook, since missionaries aren't supposed to go on Facebook so he wouldn't have seen the messages.

Here are some excerpts from his last few emails

25th June
Hows it going? This week has been a bit slow tbh because of moving (which we still haven't finished). We also got the news from our investigators that they don't think they will go to church again because of their kids, but  they are still receptive to us, so when they get back from camping we'll teach them the Plan of Salvation and they might be touched by the Spirit. Moving has been a faff, we have the keys to our flat but the Townsville West elders don't (we're getting split into 2 separate flats) so we cant move out till they do cos they need the fridge etc then they will get new stuff delivered to their flat I believe.
I gave two blessings this week;  a couple of members were sick. Sorry theres not much to say, hope you are all well, much love
P.S. talofa lave means hello in Samoan

2nd July
Hey,
I just wrote a whole email and then the browser closed and didn't save my draft.
Sorry I dont have a lot of time. This week's been good we gave a blessing which was really touching. We're moved now. Thanks so much for your emails, I hope you're all good, I'm fine.
much love Elder Kay.

9th July
Hey All,
Apologies for last week's short email. It turns out I might have to buy a new suit with my birthday money :/ I'm getting abit big. I think I'm 75 kg's but I'm exercising and I can see a bit of a difference, I dont think I'll ever be as small as I used to be, unless I get really sick and lose heaps of weight, I've been wearing different trousers with my suit for two weeks of church now because I cant physically fit my suit pants, i'm going to see if I can get them let out a bit by one of the members before I buy a new one....

So, this week we completely got shot of our old house, turned out we needed to clean better, so we enlisted some help and got it squeaky clean, we also had to mow the lawn, (thank goodness we dont have one in this flat). We did quite a bit of service this week so we haven't done a whole lot of proselyting but we saw a less active member, who hopefully will come back to church and maybe we could teach his non member family, We can also contact a guy called Rhys.  He does security work and was doing alot of overtime wor a V8 race that was in town over this weekend called the Sucrogen Townsville 400. It was a huge event and you could hear the roar of the cars all day for three days, it was kind of annoying in the end. Last weeks fast and testimony meeting was really good, a new member of our ward spoke of his wife's experience when they moved up here and how much the branch presidency supported them, it was touching as she lost her baby :( but he has a strong testimony and I think they will be great to work with.

Thinks for all your emails btw, I got heaps this week.

One annoying thing about Australia is that it takes so long for mail, but I guess it keeps me focussed.

I hope your all doing well, The church is true, Jesus is the Christ,
 love you all

Elder John Kay

P.S the weather here has been unusually wet as well

16th July
Hey Guys!!!!

Hows it going? I hope everyone is all good! Thanks for all your emails It's great to hear from you all, thanks for the birthday money mum, and dont worry that my card will be late, I dont really have any plans, I wanna work hard on my bday.

Well this week has been pretty good but we've not been able to see any of our investigators. We found two new people and taught a doorstep lesson to one. When she offereed to say the prayer she thanked Heavenly Father for sending the missionaries because she wanted to "know about what the mormons believe". Hopefully she will gain a testimony of what we share with her :)

I also gave a blessing to the second councillor on the branch presidency, he said the blessing he received was just what he needed, I couldn't even remember what I said, the Lord truly speaks through us.

Elder Abel and Latu went to Bowen (about a two hour drive south) so me and Elder Fox were on a trade off from Thursday till Sunday, it was pretty good. 

love you all

Elder Kay

Here are Elder Kay's last two emails and some photos

This one from 12th June

Good Morning from Townville,
Pday this week is on Tuesday as President Langeland came up yesterday so it was a normal work day. This last week has been pretty good, we saw alot of people. From Tuesday until Thursday we stayed in an old missionary flat in a little town called Charters Towers. We went up to see how fruitful the work would be there, it has a small Branch of about five or six active members and one of those is in the mines so isn't there sometimes, the Branch president was only baptised about two years ago so isn't very experienced, it has a wonderful little chapel, which tbh is one of the reasons it is still open as it's an old listed building. 



























So yeah we went around seeing the active and less active members and did a little finding, it's a pretty small town, just smaller than Alnwick, I don't think they will get missionaries any time soon but we're allowed to drive out there if there are teaching appointments so yeah :D Mind the flat will need some cleaning up and the toilet fixed. So yeah everythings all good we have a few people we could easily set a Baptismal date with, a family being one of them :P so we're gonna get them to church if we can next time we see them.


The missionary couple have found two houses that are closer to the chapel which is good. we'll be moving soon. I hope all is well. Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

all my love
Elder John Kay.

It looks like this photo was taken at the airport when he flew up to Townsville

On 18th June he wrote: -


Talofa lava
How is everyone this fine day? :P man the weather has taken a turn for the better, it's so clear and warm, I have more of a suntan :P  I compared my forearm to Elder Latu's chest and I'm just as brown hahaha. This week has been ok. We couldn't use the bikes this week because they were stolen. But we got the old bikes fixed (we recently bought 2 new bikes as the old ones were kinda small for a certain large Tongan missionary and a fairly large Maori companion of mine hahaha.) I can now fit some size 34 waist pants (I have a cool pair of dickies shorts that were in the flat) I've put on 14 kg's :/ I really need to  start excercising better. But anyway the work is going good, we have an investigator family who came to church this week and really liked it so, me and Elder Abel are excited :P they seem to be great people, theres no question they are interested the only thing is that Dennis smokes, but you never know he may give up easily when he gets a testimony :). We also got in contact with our next door neighbour who had a baptismal date but fell through because he and his partner had a messy breakup, but he is keen as and he LOVES the missionaries, he seems cool as and is gonna shout us a barbecue :P. So yeah, it's all good :) anyhoo, I'll be off now hope all is well. :D.

Spiritual thought: John 20:7

At the time of Christ, kings, when dining would use a folded napkin to show they were not yet finished, when they were finished they would wipe their mouth and throw the napkin away, if you read in John you see that the folded napkin in the tomb signified the work of the lord was incomplete, he would return, He certainly did return, he lives and he loves us, he is the only way we can return to our Heavenly Father

Here are Elder Kay's 2 latest emails. He has promised to send some photos to his brother as for some reason my email account won't accept them, so we will post them as soon as we can (his brother is away until Thursday)

28th May

Hello all from up in Townsville,
This week has been  overcast and rainy. I've been freezing hahaha.

It's been good to get to know the area a little, it's easier than I thought it would be. We've been delivering letters to less actives all over Townsville; the Branch President wrote a letter to all the less actives. It's a great idea. President is great, we go round his house every Sunday with some of the members of the ward to have dinner, it's awesome, there are some great families. The Branch president has high expectations (as he should). I decided that when we do deliver the letters we could knock a door either side of the house to find more people. Tracting is where you get all the funny experiences me thinks.   I love you all and pray for you, give my regards to the Branch and all, . HEAPS of love

Elder John Kay

4th June
This week has been such gloomy weather, it's been good but we bought some milo and timtams to get us through the glooms  so we had a timtam slam :P, which is when you bite the ends of the timtam
and then you suck milo through it like a straw until you can taste the milo then all the inside is all soft and the chocolate melts and its just deviiinee :P, 

The work has been pretty good this week, we've mainly been getting these letters to the less actives that I mentioned last week so I'm getting to know the area well. We found this great guy yesterday who is Catholic, I'm not sure how successful we'll be with him but I can see him as a member of the church :D we wont be going back until after the 13th though because he has exams. His name is David, he's south African and he's doing electronic and electrical engineering. It was funny actually because at first he wasn't all that
interested in even talking much about religion but then I asked for a drink (because it was the first hot day we'd had all week and we were on bikes) and we got talking and we gave him a book of Mormon so we
shall see. Townville is Beautiful but looks a bit gloomy in the rain so I've not really taken any pictures of the landscape or area but I'll send some pictures of us to Michael

One of the members of my ward said I would be good at remedial therapy, she was fixing Elder Fox's neck and I noticed the slight changes that show when you press the muscles and wait for the body to respond, so
maybe something to think about we'll see, she said you don't really need maths either,

I really don't know what I want for my Birthday, I don't want to accumulate alot of stuff while I'm up here because I can only take one suitcase back south when I leave Townsville,

We move out of our flat on the 1st of July I think - the owner wants top sell it. The senior couple are working so hard to find another one for us but flats are hard to come by up here,

I hope you are all well, my best wishes and love goes with you all. I know the Church is true, it contains the very gospel that our Lord and Saviour taught and I know that he lives as does our Father in heaven. I know the book of Mormon was translated by the power of God by a wounderful Prophet named Joseph Smith who truly saw what he said he saw - Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  In the name
of him who died to save us all, Jesus Christ Amen.

Sorry there haven't been any recent posts. Elder Kay's emails were short and mostly directed at the family for a couple of weeks. Then last week he was able to phone home as it was Mother's Day in Australia. It was lovely to chat to him - shame his dad and brother had already gone to work/ college, but that gave me and his sister more time to chat to him :-) When I preview this post it says Sunday 20th May, but it's actually Monday now

Here is today's email

Hey all,
Sorry I didnt email last week due to calling home, really sorry. The past week has been good, we found quite a few potentials tracting. We also taught a member referral lesson (a lesson that involves inviting members to give referrals, it's great and really encourages members to get focussed on a specific person or family). That went well and hopefully the Centenary Lakes Elders will have success with  getting  in contact with their family to reactivate some of their children. We got in touch with some less actives who are trying really hard to get back to church; they are doing well and having scripture study and everything but the dad works away as he is a linesman. I didn't get to see whether they were at church on Sunday because I was transfered to Townsville.  I flew up on Saturday (if you go north you go up earlier).

The first day in Townsville has been great! My new comp is called Elder Abel, from Sydney, he seems like a great guy. It was good to have a first day in the area at church, its a branch of about 100 and I was welcomed with open arms (especially as there are a lot of English peeps up here). I'm so glad to be up here in the winter, its in the tropics so it is very hot in the summer apparently but it's normally in the high 20's in winter and it doesn't really seem to get cold at night. Townsville is alot bigger than I thought it would be, It's the biggest city North of Brisbane.  I've not seen that much of it yet. I'm going to miss some families in Centenary Lakes but I'll probs see them when I come back. There are currently five Elders here at the moment because Elder Auld isn't leaving till the 29th when he flys down to the mission home to finish his mission and go home. There are two areas in Townsville (I'm in Townsville East).  I need to write to a lot of people but I'm going to wait till we move house so I can put the return address on.

I hope you are all doing well and having wounderful lives, I'll email some photos of Townsville when I have some good ones.

love, Elder John Kay


P.S.  I left all my letters with the addresses at the mission home as I was only allowed one case, so I pretty much brought the essentials.

From Elder Kay's email 23rd April

Hello everyone

 

We are plodding on slowly but surely, its been kind of disappointing this week because every time we've been to check up on a potential investigator, no one answers the door -_- aaaand Michelle has moved so we've lost track of her because we never could get hold of her to get her number. However, we got a referral from our ward mission leader this week and one referral we checked up on, on Bribie Island, is interested, the only thing is we don’t know when we'll be out there, we had to ask for more km to go out there in the first place.  Our new missionary in the flat is Elder Peaua (my district leader from the MTC), he's a nice guy. Alls well here in aussie land, the weather has been pretty nice at the moment, a bit of rain but not too much, this time of year is nice as!!! its not too hot and it only gets cold some nights.

 

Last week when we went fishing on p-day I caught my first fish EVER!!! it was a whiting and it was legal to keep, I didn't get any though cos everyone scoffed it :( but I got to eat some of Elder Peaua's flat head which was delicious, we used yabbies for bait (little half shrimp half lobster things) some of them were about 2 inches long and when we pumped them out of the sand you had to pick them up with your hand flat so they couldn't get you with the nipper. Was so much fun. There are some  great families in the ward. The Beaumonts have some friends who were taught the first lesson by the Redcliffe Elders (as they don’t live in our area) and Heidi is well keen and felt the spirit, the only problem is her husband isn't interested, but hopefully the lord will provide a way.

 

That’s just about it, hope you are all doing well, sending my best wishes and love

 

Elder John Kay

 

 

Spiritual Thought: As I was reading the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16 I pondered on the way the lord refers to Peter as the rock that he will build his church, then remembered something I had been told about this scripture that, after reading it again in context is quite obvious. Peter proclaims Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Christ replies by saying that he is blessed because this was revealed to him by heaven, referring to... Revelation, and then goes on to say that upon this rock he will build his church. the view that Peter is the rock is a common misconception, looking carefully you can see that the reason he refers to peter is because he is talking to him in conversation so if you read the verse as "...Peter, upon this rock (revelation) I will build my church." this is a testimony of the importance of revelation or, the direct communication from God to man through the Holy ghost, as referred to as the rock on which the church is build upon, without which the church would fall and mutate to the opinions and learning of mankind. I know the church truly does have the Keys of the ministering of angels and of revelation today, as did the primitive church, I know my saviour lives, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

Sorry for the delay in posting Elder Kay's last 2 emails. The Easter holidays have been very busy for us visiting family and holding a party for Elder Kay's brother who is now 18 and has started filling in the forms to serve a mission as his brothers have. So here are three emails - the last of which I received this morning.

Received 2nd April

 I hope you are all doing well, as always thank you all so much for your emails it's especially exciting to hear of the wonderful missionary work happening in the Alnwick Branch. 

 

Quite a lot has happened this week, although it feels like we've not done a lot. We went to see Michelle but there were these guys outside and we didn't feel right so we didn't go; it might have been nothing but I'd rather trust the Holy Ghost. We also had a member scheduled to teach Anthony with us but he didn't make it :(. Man the Help we've had from Brother Lawton is great. The Lawtons are awesome, they are very willing to help. We are trying to help the members as best we can. There are some awesome families in the Ward and the Bishop is filtering down from ward council and Bishop is really busy with work and stuff so we don’t want to bother him too much. He would help if he could.  I Baptised this week;  it wasn't a convert Baptism but a child of record -  it was nice. People seem to keep turning to us to organise Baptisms for their children.  I love the work.

 

Man I cant believe I've been here 3 months already. Transfers are next week and we don't really have any suspicions of who will be transferred or anything but everyone else is saying they reckon Richards will be transferred and I'll have to show a new companion the area, which would be cool but kinda scary. I'm getting used to how to do things and I know the area pretty well, but I still need to get better but I'll get better with practice. This week we're going to hit the goal of 14 hours finding so we planned 15 and fasted to find a family. We're also going cray fishing today with members of the Burpengary ward.  

 

Much love Elder Kay

 

 

Received 10th April

Hey All,

 

This week has been a bit crazy, we made a goal to do 15 hours of tracting and we made it, finding three families, so we have lots of potential investigators  to work with. Me and Elder Richards are staying together this transfer, (it's rare for companions to stay together for three transfers), so we are going to work really hard in Centenary Lakes this transfer.  I'm serving in the Centenary Lakes Ward in the Brisbane North Stake, it was just recently split from the Burpengary ward. The Easter holidays are useful as it's something to start a conversation while tracting.  We tried going round Michelle’s this week but she was out then while we were tracting the top of the estate she drove by -_- annoying. Appointments with our investigator Anthony also fell through a couple time but we'll see him eventually.The work is good and we are starting to work with the ward a bit better.

 

Elder Kay xxx

 

Received 16th April

Hows everyone in the land of Eng? Hope everyone is doing good. Elder Richards and I have decided to go megga healthy (or as healthy as can be with our budget and members feeding us). We were at a meal appointment and Bro Forstpointer was telling us about exercise and diet, it was so interesting, so on Saturday we ate at Macdonalds as a last time really unhealthy feed (as we cant buy Maccers on Sunday) and started a hard out workout session today! I've put on loads of weight so I really need to get in shape. So yeah, fun fun fun. We are going fishing this Pday (this time it's for real fish though and the member we are with knows what he's doing) so looking forward to that.

 

The work is still slow, we've been a bit frustrated because we've asked about the 15 names program (a program for reactivating less active members) and nothings happened. The ward council have it running but none of the members are contacting any of the people. We're gonna get it going this week though, contacting  members and investigators and getting this place rolling. Also one of the members told us that we are missionaries that she would trust with her friends, so we must be doing some good :).

 

I enjoyed General Conference this week (It's delayed in Aussie because of the extreme time difference and then it was Easter the week after) I especially liked the talk on Forgiveness by President Uchtdorf :P What wounderful council our beloved general authorities give us. It is especially important to forgive as the Lords work cannot move forward with strifes and contentions (see Book of Mormon).

 

I know the Gospel certainly does bless lives, I know that my Saviour is the head of this church which is truly and surely His and the one and only true church on the earth. 

 

All the best

Bye!!!