CORVALLIS — For two years, Gus Lavaka walked daily from hut to hut in Tonga, sharing the LDS church's message as a missionary.
He said his experience was much like "The Other Side of Heaven," the 2001 film starring Christopher Gorham and Anne Hathaway. Lavaka often saw people sleeping on the street. He lost about 50 pounds, because sometimes he did not have much to eat. After growing up in a family of 11, he learned how to be independent.
So to say the 22-year-old Oregon State freshman offensive lineman has perspective is an understatement. Yet when Lavaka watched from the sideline teammate Fred Lauina go down early in the Beavers' contest at Colorado, he acknowledged he started "trembling.