The Unexpected Pin - Elder Cullimore Part 8

A continuation of Elder Cullimore's mission Recollections...

After I had been in the mission field about eighteen months, President Kimball asked me how long I had been out.  He said, "You will be going home about October Conference".  In my wife's letter she asked me if I had heard anything about when I might be released.  After the conversation with President Kimball I told her what he had said.  Soon after this we received word that it was not a two-year mission, but a two or three-year mission, or as the Lord desired us to remain.  I had to tell my wife what I had learned.  The next letter from her was the most blue and disappointing one she had ever sent me.  Naturally it hurt me to know how blue she was.  I was very sad and blue myself over it. Her birthday was coming on the 30th of September, and how I wished I had something to send her for it.  I had no money and no way of getting her anything for her birthday.  I thought it might cheer her up if I could send her some little remembrance, and that it would also do something for my own morale.

I prayed earnestly that this desire could be accomplished. As I fasted, I would especially mention this in my prayers.

In our tracting White County, we had to visit a section on the Cumberland Mountains.  It was a flat section on top, very scarcely settled; and the people living there were very poor. The land was so very poor, they could scarcely make a living. The few houses were scattered about two miles apart, and there was very little travel in the area.  We were walking on one of these roads where it looked as though there hadn't been any traffic on it for months.  My companion walked in one track, and I walked in the other.   As we were going along I discovered a beautiful brooch or breast pin lying in the road.  My companion was as surprised as I was.  He said, "Where could it have come from, a new pin on a card just as it would have come from the manufacturer." And it looked as if there hadn't been anyone along there in months.  If there had been, no one in the area could have afforded a pin like it.

I told my companion how I had fasted and prayed for a present to send my wife on her birthday.  He said, "This is the answer to your prayers".  I kept the pin several days and asked the people in the area if they had lost it.   In each case they said, "No, we could not afford a pin like that".  So I secured a little box, and mailed it home to my wife for her birthday.  She was surprised upon receiving it, and wondered how I got the money to buy such a beautiful present.  She wore it until I came home; and when I told her how I got it, that it was given to me for her in answer to prayer, she stopped wearing it for fear she would lose it.  She still holds it as a dear possession.