From My Father - Little Kelli and Leukemia

My father - Jim Hartley 

This is a story my father recorded in his autobiography that has helped strengthen my faith in praying and fasting for others, even when circumstances can be very grim. This took place in California in the early 1960s. Here are his words:

"[...] I felt the power of a purposeful fast for the first time when I was 11-years old. We had a little girl in our ward, maybe five years old at the time, named Kelli Meyer. She suffered from leukemia. The disease progressed and she was hospitalized. She was in immense pain, and the doctors didn’t expect her to live. The bishop, Al Priddis, asked ward members to fast and pray for Kelli and her family. I knew Kelli. I knew her father, Vern. He ran the Flying A gas station next to the high school. I included Kelli in my prayers and voluntarily joined the fast. It was the first time that I had fasted for a full 24 hours. During the fast, Bishop Priddis and Brother Meyer gave Kelli a priesthood blessing to fight off the disease. Miraculously the disease immediately went into remission. The doctors could not explain the change. Kelli’s pain went away and she was able to go home.

But, within a few weeks, the leukemia returned with a vengeance and threatened to take her life again. Again the ward members (including me) prayed and fasted for her. Bishop Priddis and Brother Meyer again blessed her in the hospital, and the same unexplainable miracle happened. The disease suddenly went into remission, the pain disappeared, and Kelli went home to her family. Again, the doctors were completely baffled.

Then, just like before, within a few weeks the disease returned to claim little Kelli. This time there was no ward fast, but the bishop and Kelli’s loving dad gave her a final blessing. This time it was to release her from mortality. Kelli’s pain disappeared, and within a couple of hours of the blessing, Kelli passed away peacefully with her family surrounding her hospital bed.

I remember the bishop’s words when he reported the experience to the ward. He said that our prayers, fasts, and priesthood blessings were honored by Heavenly Father, but it was God’s will to bring his little daughter home to the spirit world. Our prayers and fasts were keeping her here, and she needed to go. It was time to say to Heavenly Father, “Thy will, not ours, be done.” When we did, Kelli was mercifully released from life. What a profound lesson that was to me as an 11-year old about the power of fasting, prayer, and the priesthood."

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Taken from life sketch and autobiography "James E. Hartley: My Story"

* The spelling for "Kelli Meyer" may vary slightly in reality. This is the spelling how my father recalls..