“Friend to Friend: ‘… A Little Child Shall Lead Them’” Friend, Nov. 1974, 6
Friend to Friend:
“… A Little Child Shall Lead Them”
Several years ago I became acquainted with a family who made some wonderful changes in their lives, and it all came about because of the faith of their eleven-year-old daughter.
The father of this family was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, some of his habits kept him from being active, and the mother was not a member of any church. Neither parent cared which church, if any, their daughter attended.
By the time she was eleven years old, she had been to a number of different churches in the community. Then one day she went to a Latter-day Saint Sunday School, and her life changed.
Every week after that this girl was in her Sunday School class where she learned all she could about the gospel. It was there that she began to understand the importance of asking a blessing on food and also why members of the Church fast one Sunday a month.
Soon her family was blessing the food before each meal and the parents knew that their daughter felt it was important not to eat breakfast on Fast Sunday.
One morning, however, the girl forgot it was Fast Sunday and ate the delicious breakfast her mother had prepared for the rest of the family. When she came home from meeting that day, she cried, “Oh, Mother, why didn’t you tell me that today was Fast Sunday?”
The mother didn’t understand much about fasting but she was so touched by her daughter’s deep concern and by her tears that she wanted to know more about the purpose for fasting.
The girl was able to explain the importance of the principle of fasting to her. She also told her mother many things about other principles of the gospel and how much the Church meant in her life.
All of this was amazing to the mother who asked her daughter’s forgiveness for not realizing how important it was to observe the fast. Then she prayed to the Lord that He, too, might forgive her.
The more the mother thought about what her daughter had told her, the more impressed she felt to learn more about the gospel. She began attending Sunday School and sacrament meeting with her daughter and young son.
The missionaries were soon invited to come into their home to teach the family. Before long the mother and her daughter were ready for baptism and the father had become active and worthy to perform this sacred ordinance. Later, when their son turned eight, the father baptized him.
In time the father was set apart as a counselor in the branch presidency. On the parents’ fifteenth wedding anniversary, the family was able to go to the Los Angeles Temple where they were married for time and all eternity and their children were sealed to them. It was a glorious day for this family.
How true are the words of the prophet Isaiah, “… and a little child shall lead them.”
Illustrated by Ralph Barksdale