“Little Karl” by Melissa Leilani Larson was a finalist in the 2012 Four Centuries of Mormon Stories contest. It was originally published online at Everyday Mormon Writer on October 15, 2012.
It’s quite a jog from Malmö to Missouri to say the least. But Andrew and Annie came, all heart and faith; and that was the sum of what they had: heart, in the form of their son, two-year-old Karl, and their faith, newly discovered. Faith brought them across the Atlantic to New Orleans, then up the Mississippi, and finally helped them build a house on the prairie near Independence. Here they lived and worked for the means to go even further—to Utah.