Rex Wrote: On our first Sunday in Fiji, Nov. 2014, Sister Prakash come up to me a said, “I have a son coming home soon from a mission, and I want him to go to BYU Hawaii.”

I looked at her and replied, “You are not old enough to have a son on a mission.” I had made an instant friend.

From that point Betty and I, mostly Betty, started learning online and from the Self Reliance Center in Suva what was needed to get someone accepted to BYU Hawaii. When Sister Prakash’s son, Ruhal, got home in May 2015, only about half of his application was completed. We told him which English proficiency test he had to take (SLEP) and helped him arrange an appointment with the man who was coming to Labasa to give it to him. (We have since made good friends with Brother Safeti who comes once a month to give tests and do training for the leadership of seminaries and institutes. He has recently been ordained to be a patriarch so now also gives blessings when he comes. He loves to relax on Friday nights by playing volleyball with the youth. He has the biggest grin on his face of them all.)

At the same time Rahul got home, we got a new Labasa missionary, Elder Kumar. Rahul jumped right in and spent a lot of his time, as a member present, working with the Hindi Elders. As we were talking and working with Rahul, Elder Kumar said he would like to go to BYU Hawaii, too.

Rahul had been told iWorks was full for Jan. and he needed to try for March 2016. The date to have everything completed by was September 30, 2015. When Betty saw one of Rahul's papers, she asked if he would mind if she made a couple of corrections. He was pleased with what he saw her do. In July, Rahul got a job and moved to Suva. After that, we had to work with him long distance, mostly through his mother. Rahul had asked if Betty would go through his other papers. Of course, Betty was delighted. No big changes, but she took out his negative comments, added a couple more positive, and made it sound and look a little more acceptable.

Elder Kumar’s transcripts and important documents were at his home in Ba, on the main island of Fiji, so he had to work with his family long distance as well. When transfers came, Elder Kumar told me he was getting a new companion who was then serving in his home ward in Ba. I called up our old friend Elder Palelai, his companion, and asked him to get Elder Kumar’s paper work from his family and send it with his companion who was being transferred to Labasa. Elder Palelai was surprised, not by the request, but they had not yet heard of the transfer.  Ooops! I said, “Sorry! Act surprised when the mission president calls.”

Both Rahul and Elder Kumar worked against all odds and got their completed applications in by the deadline. We were grateful Elder Kumar was able to serve here until that was done. He was transferred from Labasa soon after.

Then the waiting game began. They were told they would know by November 15. On Nov 16, we waited for email to tell us the news. No email. At about 10 PM, Elder Kumar called and said he was In!  We were so excited. Two days later Elder Kumar called again. He said he was doing fine. Then he said he wasn’t doing fine at all. He had been trying to do the online work to accept the offer to go to BYU Hawaii, and the computer started freezing up. He started hitting buttons to fix the problem and accidently hit “Decline Acceptance.” Oooops! He wrote them an email immediately to tell them what had happened, then called us to say, “HELP!”

We were on the road headed to Taveuni and a near internet black out. We told him we would do what we could! In Savusavu that evening, we were able to send an email to BYU Hawaii to Janey. (Betty had made friends with her over the phone and by email. She had been very supportive and graciously helped solve a few issues along the way.) We told her the problem and gave her Elder Kumar’s phone number and email address for her to communicate with him directly. In Taveuni we got the internet to work for three minutes, just enough time to see a reply from Janey at BYU Hawaii that said, “All is well!” She had fixed half the problem and would work with Elder Kumar to fix the rest.

When we got back from the trip, we called Sister Prakash and asked if Rahul had heard yet? No, he had not. They were getting worried. She asked if we could check it out. Rahul and his mother had worked so hard to try to make their dream of his going to BYU Hawaii come true. Betty sent another email to Janey. She had to cry a little when she got Janey’s reply:

  

Aloha Sister Woodward,

He is in, we are almost complete and most of the remainder of the decisions we will be sending out are deny letters as we are out of space. Please encourage others who are qualified to re-submit their applications as there were many qualified candidates we were not able to bring this round due to space.

Your input and assistance with these two boys really helped us in our decision making.

Janey