“I Brought My Own Shoes,” Liahona, July 2023, United States and Canada Section.
Aging Faithfully
I Brought My Own Shoes
As we began our senior mission, I struggled to follow those who preceded me.
When I am at home, I have work shoes, gardening shoes, running and walking shoes, sandals and flip-flops for summer, and boots for winter. Then there are dress shoes, other casual shoes, and slippers to wear around the house to keep my feet warm. In the shoe department, my husband says I just have too many shoes!
I took many of the shoes with me on our senior mission. I know that I used up more than my fair share of luggage space on shoes. But I learned a long time ago, if my feet aren’t comfortable, I am miserable.
As part of human nature, many of us often struggle to follow those who precede us. And I am no exception. As a senior missionary, I would often hear, “Sister Smith did this” or “Sister Brown did that” or “That’s not how the Wilsons did it.” Sometimes it’s good to know a different way of doing things. We can often learn a lot from each other.
But at times, these comparisons made me feel inadequate. I didn’t know how to be Sister Smith or Sister Brown. I only knew how to be me.
One evening we had the opportunity to go to a teaching appointment with the young missionaries. As we introduced ourselves to the mother and her rambunctious son, we mentioned that we replaced one of the previous senior couples who had served there. To this statement she replied, “Oh, then you have big shoes to fill!” After that, the elders proceeded with their lesson, and we had a really nice visit.
My husband and I served in the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission.
Photographs courtesy of the author
On our walk the following morning, I mentioned to my husband how this well-intended woman’s statement about having big shoes to fill made me feel. He reminded me that the Lord tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 46 that we all have different gifts “that all may be benefited” (verse 9; see also verse 11). He told me I didn’t have to walk in a previous missionary’s shoes because I had my own.
And then it hit me: I brought my own shoes! I had no need to fill the previous sister’s shoes. I just needed to fill my own.
Situations like this happen all through our lives. We follow previous individuals all the time: when we get a new job, move to a different house, or get a new assignment at church. We follow our mother-in-law, coworker, neighbor, or committee chair. Too often we compare ourselves to the previous people and the way they did things. Human nature is just that way. But we are all different. We have our own path to walk, and we need to fill our own shoes to do that.
That day in the mission field, I realized that I had a testimony that I could be successful on my mission because the Lord would help me. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).
We served for 6 months in Guyana helping with self-reliance and then 12 months in the mission office on the island of Curaçao.
I also knew I could continue to serve in the role to which I had been called because, as President Russell M. Nelson taught, “He [Christ] gave you and me an unlimited capacity to love.”1 I could love the people on my mission in my own way because I brought my own shoes. And they fit me just fine.
The author lives in Idaho.