A Birthday Baptism

When Alice’s mother and sisters decided to become members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Alice was only six and too young to be baptized with the rest of her family in Bahnhofstr, Germany. Because they often talked of the wonderful experience of baptism and the joy their membership in the Church had brought them, Alice could hardly wait to be eight so she could be baptized too.

Alice planned and dreamed how she would be baptized on her birthday. “Not sometime after,” she insisted, “but on that very day.”

However, three days before Alice turned eight, she awoke with a severe headache, and the next day she was too ill to go to school.

The doctor who was called said she would have to stay home and in bed for at least a week. Alice’s big eyes filled with tears of disappointment.

The next day Alice was even more miserable, and her temperature was higher despite the medicine the doctor had prescribed. Mother was puzzled and concerned, but Alice felt worse about not being baptized on the very day of her birthday than she did about all her aches and pains and fever.

The afternoon before Alice’s birthday, her mother started into the sickroom. But she stopped at the door when she saw Alice kneeling in fervent prayer on her bed. This little girl was pleading with Heavenly Father for fulfillment of her great desire to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On the morning of her birthday, Alice got up, dressed, and prepared for baptism. Her fever was gone and she felt well and happy. Some hours later her mother checked Alice’s temperature again and it still registered normal.

God had answered Alice’s sincere prayer. That evening she was baptized!

Illustrated by Ted Henninger