Miracle of the Shoes

I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Korea, Seoul mission. While preparing for my mission, I was instructed to buy slip on shoes vice ones that lace up since they don't wear shoes inside houses in Korea and I would be taking my shoes on an off multiple times a day. Due to money being tight, I knew that the shoes needed to last me the entire two years so I bought two pairs of them. 


In the MTC my companion and I decided to shave our legs.
I am on the left.   These are the shoes that I cut.

Shortly after arriving in Korea, my feet started to hurt a lot. We did a lot of walking each day. The most effective way to meet people in my area at the time was stopping and talking to people on the street. This meant that I walked several miles every day and my feet really started to bother me. At first, I thought that the shoes just needed to get broken in and then they would be alright. But that wasn't going to be the case. Just how slip-on shoes are designed, they put pressure on the top of my foot in such a way that severely irritated my feet. After a few weeks of this, my feet had swollen up so big that I could not even get the shoes on.

I had a dilemma, I could stay in the apartment and hopefully my feet would heal enough to get my shoes on or I had to cut down the sides of the shoes to slide my feet inside them. I decided that the right thing to do was to cut down the side of the shoes. This would allow use of the shoes for the time being but this meant that I would have to buy new shoes in the near future. But I would be able to continue doing the Lord's work. Which was the most important thing.  So I cut them down the side and continued proselyting.


A day or so later I got the idea that I should start looking around my apartment and see if there might be shoes left by a previous missionary. I looked under my bed and in the back corner I found a shoebox covered in dust. I climbed under a pulled the box out and sure enough, the box contained a slightly used pair of shoes that were just my size. (Missionary apartments are always full of discarded old shirts and ties and other items that missionaries decide they don't want to take when transferred to another area. But this was the only time I found a pair of shoes. And no one ever leaves new clothing items, only items that have been well used and abused by active and hard working missionaries.)




Baptism just over 1 year into the mission

I was very grateful for the shoes and thanked the Lord for them but I did not really realize this to be the miracle this really was until recently, after being home for fifteen years. That pair of shoes lasted almost my entire mission. The soles finally wore completely through the bottom of the shoes a few months before I returned home and I left them in my last apartment a long with several other items that I had worn out or did not need when I got home.

I now regret not keeping them because I finally realize how great a miracle they really were. 
A few days later was my preparation day and I was able to go shopping for a second pair shoes. I quickly found that being a big American in an oriental country meant that almost nowhere had shoes in my side. We luckily found a little shop that had one pair that would fit (American size 13). I also used this pair for the rest of my mission. This pair of able to be re-soled once and I was able to wear them home from my mission two years later.

I never missed a day of proselytizing because of my shoes and the Lord provided for me in my time of need. 
While on my mission I did not realize the significance of the blessing having these shoes brought. But now years later I realize that this was a true miracle. And just like the disciples failure to realize they were witnessing Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem as the fulfillment of prophecy until later, I was caught up in the moment and did not realize the significance of it.


John12:12-16:


12 ¶On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,
13 Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.
14 And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,
15 Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
16 These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

Picture with the Mission President Right before I flew home from my mission