She arrived in a shoe box, tenderly cushioned in plain white paper. My dad, who worked for The Mother Church, brought her home one day to show me. I remember thinking, as I opened the package and saw the doll for the first time, that I'd never seen anything so beautiful.
She wore rose-colored Hungarian peasant dress. Her white blouse and bonnet were covered with embroidered flowers that are still bright today. And the white lace that trimmed her costume was exquisite. But what I noticed most, when as a little girl I first saw her, was her face. It was radiant with a gentle smile, and her eyes seemed to be looking far into the future—into something spiritual and ideal that made her face glow with serenity and happiness.
In her hands she held a little handwritten card that said, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee." (I know from Sunday School that those were the words the Apostle Peter said to a lame man just before he healed him.) See Act 3:1-8 . Below that, the card said simply, "Take this child to her Mother."
