“You Put Your Whole Self In,” Liahona, Mar. 2022.
Aging Faithfully
You Put Your Whole Self In
Even if it means you have to “shake yourself about,” senior missionary service will bring you joy.
Photograph courtesy of the author
A few months after my husband and I returned from serving a humanitarian mission, I started reminiscing. Why was our mission still so meaningful?
When we are asked to speak about our experiences, it’s like a waterfall of goodness washes over me and the current transports me back to the time and experiences we shared with the wonderful people of Laos.
I remember a silly song we used to sing with them. It’s called “The Hokey Pokey,” and the last verse includes the phrase, “You put your whole self in, and you shake yourself about.” When we sang the song, the people would gleefully join in. They would shake and dance, and then they would clap their hands in happiness.
I think that song encapsulates our feelings about our mission—we put our whole selves into the Lord’s work. We soon learned how blessed we were to join in Laotian culture. As humanitarian missionaries, we got to help them by teaching English. We talked, danced, and whirled our way through our classes. But our payback was sweet. We found that as much as we loved them, they loved us back.
Our mission became a special time of our lives that we could really call our own. It put a shine on our golden years. We spent a lifetime raising our children, earning a living, buying a home, and doing all those things that seem so important along the way. Then came retirement and the question, “What do we do now?”
My message is that if you want to find some lasting happiness, get out and help somebody along the way. That’s where true joy comes from: service. And the wonderful surprise is that while you are giving, you are also getting in abundance. We found that many of the Laotian people didn’t have a lot of material possessions. But they were rich in the joy of living, a joy they freely shared with us. They increased our ability to rejoice.
Illustration by Carolyn Vibbert
So, don’t be afraid to “put your whole self in,” even if it means you have to “shake yourself about.” Sing and dance with another culture and you too will find that a waterfall of goodness will wash over you. That’s one of the secrets of the humanitarian missionary effort—you both give and receive. I thank my Heavenly Father every day that we were blessed to be part of such a wonderful opportunity, to spread the spirit of the gospel with our brothers and sisters in Laos.
The author lives in Utah, USA.