Little Champions

I took this photo at a recent “final performance” of my almost two-year-old granddaughter’s “Little Gym” class, just after each of the young participants received a medal for their numerous accomplishments (including being able to do the “monkey jump”). All wonderful little champions in their own way. Can you guess which one is my amazing and almost always happy granddaughter?

One thing I love about the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is the insight it provides on little children. We learn that they come to this world pure and precious, with souls that are spirit children of God, having come to us from His presence, with a veil of forgetfulness covering memory of their premortal existence. They come with divine heritage and divine potential, here to experience mortality. In this realm they will obtain the sacred gift of a body in the image of God that one day will be resurrected, and endure a brief mortal trial. Those who die in their infancy are redeemed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and have no need for baptism or repentance, but are innocent before God.

The precious, divine gift of children imposes great responsibility on us adults to protect, love, and nurture them and help them understand who they are, why they are here, and what they must do to have happiness and eternal life. We also learn that it is a great blessing and privilege to have children in a family, whom God has entrusted to our care. May we cherish them, protect them, and teach them well, that they may all remain champions in God’s eyes – through the power of the only real champion, Jesus Christ, whom they and all of us are called to follow.

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Author: Jeff Lindsay

21 thoughts on “Little Champions

  1. AMEN!!!!

    Lovely, lovely post!

    My mother grew up in another religion and just sort of assumed that what she’d been taught all her life was true. (I think we ALL do that for awhile, no matter WHAT religion we grow up in. It’s usually when we’re teens or older to really do some deep consideration of what we’ve been taught to come to our OWN decisions about what we’ve been taught and develop our own testimony, rather than just having an extention of mom and dad’s.)

    It was when I was being baptized as a baby and she heard the priest say that I was being forgiven for being guilty of original sin and that being baptized made me a child of God, that it suddenly hit her what she’d been taught all her life, and after really thinking about it and talking with her priest, she didn’t think it made any sense.

    She didn’t understand why anyone, much less an innocent baby would be held accountable and need to be forgiven for someone ELSE’S sin.

    Then she found the LDS church…

  2. I second bottom left

    At the airport on my way to a conference the other day, I sat next to a pagan (no joke) and some flavor of Christian having an argument about Christianity. The thing that caught my attention was that many of the pagan’s gripes with Christianity hit doctrines (like infant baptism) which are only there because of the great apostasy. She even tried — without success — to convince the Christian that Christianity “started out as a pure religion but not too long afterward something went horribly wrong.”

    Kind of weird to find myself agreeing with a pagan…

  3. “Kind of weird to find myself agreeing with a pagan…”

    But so true. The problems/disagreements most non-Christians (athiests, agnostics, Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, etc) have with “mainstream Christianity” are the same problems we have with “mainstream Christianity”.

    And to those non-Christians, they see Christianity as a monolith, the only version of it being “mainstream Christianity.” We all get lumped in together.

    As Ghandi once wisely said: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

  4. “Christianity hit doctrines (like infant baptism) which are only there because of the great apostasy.”

    What documentation or evidence do you have for the “great apostasy”?….dates, events, and such.

  5. So cute 🙂

    I have two small children who are very rambunctious, and much of the time that is challenging for me.

    One day when we were in the church bathroom I was *trying* to do my business when my 2 year old daughter started hanging upside down from the handicap bar in the stall. I thought for sure she was going to hurt herself, when it suddenly hit me-

    She spent centuries waiting to get her very own body- and then she had a year and a half where she just didn’t know how to use it, and now- at two- she has total mstery and can jump and flip and crack her head open- and of course she is! She must be so joyful to be in this new nifty body, and I just don’t think of it because I take mine for granted.

  6. Yes, she’s the cutie with the pigtails. And she’s just an amazing little bundle of energy who loves to learn. And she loves to play “Woof Woof” – an intense game of strategy and action that Grandpa Lindsay created for her. While space does not permit a discussion of the full scope of this game, it basically involves exploring the psyche of young canines as one scratches the carpet and makes barking sounds, or more properly, says, “woof woof.” It’s quite a hit.

    My other game is a bit more scientifically based. “Space monkeys” is inspired by a presentation I saw in Russia about research and training with monkeys in space suits to prepare them for the rigors of space travel. The rules of “Space Monkeys” involve waving your arms as if free floating in zero-gravity, making monkey calls (chimp calls, most typically), and occasionally saying “spaaaaaaace monnkeeeeeeeys.”

    I think she prefers “woof woof.” And she likes a historical game I created, “Pirates.” That’s where you put one hand over an eye and say, “Arrr arrr arrr!” She usually wins.

  7. What documentation or evidence do you have for the “great apostasy”?

    *sigh*

    Two year olds are so fun to play with… my girls’ favorite is running around in circles as I play “flight of the bumblebee” on the piano. They call it “princess dancing.”

  8. Ryan,

    Does any LDS ever post a NON LDS source? Nothing like posting evidence from spin doctors to support a point of view…..LOL

    The source you provided confuses reformation with restoration….not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.

  9. Great games, Jeff! I’ll try Space Monkey soon. I think there’s a series of books out there about a chimp named Moonbeam who goes into space. Maybe she’d enjoy that? Sounds like you’re a wonderful grandfather.

  10. “Does any LDS ever post a NON LDS source? “

    Yes, quite often. I guess you haven’t been reading this blog very long, and you probably haven’t read the many pages at:

    http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/index.html

    Jeff quotes plenty of “early Christian fathers” in the bits about the apostasy, and how LDS doctrine is closer to 1st and 2nd century Christianity than “Mainstream Christianity” is today.

    Some non-LDS sources quoted by Jeff are under topics of baptism for the dead, and theosis:
    http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_theosis.shtml
    http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ_BaptDead.shtml

    More non-LDS sources quoted by an LDS can be found here:
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/2671/EC.html

    Happy reading. (That is, if you’d rather actually read information instead of just arguing. Argument is down the hall.)

  11. “Lame blog, lame church.”

    Great place to post that opinion. on a blog about someone’s granddaughter. Good call!

  12. Bookslinger,

    I checked out the Jeff Lindsey links and found little worth considering. As to the other site, some of the links are dead and those that work simply talk about “apostacy”; not give specifics.

    But, one interesting note is for the “restoration” to occur, it had to once exist. If you take Mormon Doctrine as truth, then it must have been practiced at some point in history. Any documentation when and by who?

    Note: other than the usual LDS PR links

  13. “found little worth considering” = didn’t actually read it or try to digest anything. Mind already made up. OK, we know the game. Sweeping dismissals of evidence and documentation. Easy to do.

  14. anon: I was wondering before, but now I’m convinced, you’re a troll.

    Your questions have been addressed and answered on pro-Mormon apologetic sites many times, such as FairLDS.org, FARMS, Jeff’s FAQs, and countless posts and comments on this blog.

    If you want any responses to future questions, I suggest you pick and register a Blogger handle, and use it. You can still be anonymous if you want, by using a Blogger handle/username.

    If you’re trying play the “sincere questioner” game in order to waste time and frustrate Mormons, you’re lousy at it. You need to practice more at being sincere. Try harder.

    I tire of your games here. I’ve seen it before. You’re not sincere, you’re not honest, and you’re not open to direct answers to your questions. You’re just re-playing standardized anti-mormon lines that have been played a zillion times before.

    And in the off chance that you do ever come up with a sincere question, we are not your research lackeys. Go look up the answers yourself.

    Buh-bye. Or as we used to say in Usenet: “PLONK”.

  15. Bookslinger,

    The REAL questions stump you, don’t they? I suppose it’s too much to ask for Mormons, such as yourself, to think for yourself instead of merely posting links to LDS shill sites. If you don’t like my questions, ignore them.

  16. anon

    Either way your question has been answered. I fear you just didn’t like the answers. You are asking for proof and there is none to be found here. Just plain old beliefs.

    I really like the condition you placed on Bookslinger’s answers,

    “Note: other than the usual LDS PR links”.

    Thats pretty funny. Thats like my child asking me if the world is flat or round then restricting me to use a reference from the 14th century. That would, of course, be a waste of time and contain mostly inaccuracies and myths.

    And for your “REAL” questions. They are unoriginal and I doubt they stump anyone with half a brain.

  17. Lower left…

    How could anyone look at these precious kids and think they’re born evil. *shaking my head*

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