As soon as Hefolau Lotononga Lavaka heard about the Close Up Foundation’s Washington, DC, trip for high school students, she immediately knew two things: she wanted to participate, and she’d need to pay her own way.
She started saving during her freshman year, buying candy in bulk and selling it bar by bar in her hometown of Oakland, California. When Lavaka landed in DC four years later, she realized that playing the long game wasn’t just about the payoff. It was also about the power that comes from working hard and waiting.
Lavaka’s knack for business and numbers eventually led her to study accounting as an undergrad at BYU Marriott, but when she applied for the MAcc program in 2006, she wasn't accepted. “At first I was sad,” she recalls. “But God knew me. God knew my situation.”
Lavaka shelved her grad school goal and, after graduating with a BS in accounting, took a job at Barrick Gold, a mining company. “When I got my job offer, I realized, ‘This is what I’m supposed to do,’” she recalls.
Six years later, Lavaka earned her master of accountancy at Westminster College—but on the company’s dime. Her patience had paid off but was about to be tested by a tragedy.
On November 1, 2016, Lavaka was preparing to leave for a trip to New York City, where she had served a mission years earlier, when a slew of bullets hit the garage and front door of her home in the Rose Park neighborhood of Salt Lake City. Lavaka thought it was post-Halloween fireworks—until she felt a sharp pain in her leg.
“I looked down and realized that there was a hole through my leg and my inner thigh and that I was bleeding,” she recounts. A sheriff who lived a few houses down rushed over, and the police soon followed. They identified a similar house nearby that was likely the intended target, but authorities never caught the shooters.
A long and difficult recovery followed. “I’m very stubborn,” Lavaka says. “I don’t really like having people help me.” But Lavaka leaned on her faith and moved in with her cousins in Lehi, Utah.
Picking up the pieces of her professional life presented additional challenges. Barrick Gold relocated to Nevada during Lavaka’s recovery, so she needed to find a new employer. She also wanted to find a role that wouldn’t require the late nights she had worked before.
Lavaka found a home at Cricut in accounts receivable, which offered the work-life balance she needed. “There’s opportunity for growth and opportunity to thrive here,” she says. Personally, she’s also flourishing: Lavaka is a Sunday School teacher in her single adult ward and is a guiding light to her two young-adult nieces who live with her and her cousins.
Like the DC trip, the New York City trip happened in due time—thanks to Lavaka’s persistence and her former mission companion’s patience in pushing Lavaka’s wheelchair through the Big Apple’s boroughs. “I just keep moving forward,” Lavaka says.
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Written by Shannon Keeley
This article was highlighted in the Alumni News section of Marriott Alumni Magazine's summer 2024 edition.
