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LDS (Mormon) Prophecy - Reasons for Preparedness

AMERICAN INDIAN NEWS TICKER!!!

LDS Prophets on "Survivalism"


Ezra Taft Benson

October Conference, 1980

For over forty years, in a spirit of love, members of the Church have

been counseled to be thrifty and self-reliant; to avoid debt; pay tithes

and a generous fast offering; be industrious; and have sufficient food,

clothing, and fuel on hand to last at least one year.

Today there are compelling reasons to reemphasize this counsel.

...In saying this, I am aware of and sympathetic to the plight of many

young families who are stuggling to make ends meet. They are faced with

the financial burden of providing for three great necessities of life;

food, clothing, and shelter. I am also sympathetic to the situation of

widows and other sisters who rear families alone. By revelation, the

Lord made provision for their care and support. (See D&C 83:1-2, 4-6.)

...We do know that the Lord has decreed global calamities for the

future and has warned and forewarned us to be prepared. For this reason

the Brethren have repeatedly stressed a "back to basics" program for

temporal and spiritual welfare.

...Today, I emphasize a most basic principle: home production and

storage. Have you ever paused to realize what would happen to your

community or nation of transportation were paralyzed or if we had a war

or depression? How would you and your neighbors obtain food? How long

would the corner grocery store - or supermarket - sustain the needs of

the community?

...Shortly after World War II, I was called by the First Presidency to

go to Europe to reestablish our missions and set up a program for the

distribution of food and clothing to the Saints. Vivid in my memory are

the people who got on trains each morning with all kinds of bric-a-brac

in their arms to go out to the countryside to trade their possession for

food. At evening time, the train station was filled with people with

arms full of vegatables and fruits, and a menagerie of squealing pigs

and chickens. You never heard such a commotion. These people were, of

course, willing to barter practically anything for the commodity which

sustains life - food.

...An almost forgotten means of economic self-reliance is the home

production of food. We are too accustomed to going to stores and

purchasing what we need.

...No more timely counsel, I feel, has been given by President Kimball

than his repeated emphasis to grow our own gardens. Here is one sample

of his emphasis over the past seven years:

"We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your

own property. Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees - plant then if your

climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat then from

your own yard." (Ensign, May 1976, p. 124)

Many of your have listened and done as President Kimball counseled,

and you have been blessed for it. Others have rationalized that they had

no time or space. May I suggest you do what others have done. Get

together with others and seek permission to use a vacant lot for a

garden, or rent a plot of ground and grow your gardens. Some elders

quorums have done this as a quorum, and all who have participated have

reaped the benefits of a vegetable and fruit harvest and the blessings

of cooperation and family involvement. Many families have dug up lawn

space for gardens.

...We encourage you to be more self-reliant so that, as the Lord has

declared, "notwithstanding the tribulation which shall decend upon

you,...the church may stand independent above all other creatures

beneath the celestial world" (D&C 78:14). The Lord wants us to be

independent and self-reliant because these will be days of tribulation.

He has warned and forewarned us of the eventuality.

President Brigham Young said, "If you are without bread, how much

wisdom can you boast, and of what reall utility are your talents, of you

cannot procure for yourselves and save against a day of scarcity those

substances designed to sustain your natural lives?" (In "Journal of

Discourses," 8:68.)

...Food production is just one part of the repeated emphasis that you

store a provision of food which will last for at least a year wherever

it is legally permissable to do so. The Church has not told you what

foods should be stored. This decision is left up to individual members.

However, some excellent suggestions are available in the booklet

produced by the Church entitled "Essentials of Home Production &

Storage" (stock no. PGWE1125; 50 cents each). There are also booklets

available on gardening from BYU.

...From the standpoint of food production, storage, handling, and the

Lord's counsel, what should have a high priority. "There is more

salvation and security in wheat," said Orson Hyde years ago, "than in

all the political schemes of the world" (in "Journal of Discourses,"

2:207). Water, of course, is essential. Other basics could include honey

or sugar, legumes, milk products or substitutes, and salt or its

equivalent.

...The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our

temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days

of Noah.

...Elder Harold B. Lee counseled, "Perhaps if we think not in terms of a

year's supply of what we ordinarily would use, and think more in terms

of what it would take to keep us alive in case we didn't have anything

it trees else to eat, that last would be very easy to put in storage for a

year...just enough to keep us alive if we didn't have anything else to

eat. We wouldn't get fat on it, but we would live; and if you think in

terms of that kind of annual storage rather than a whole year's supply

of everything that you are accustomed to eat which, in most cases, is

utterly impossible for the average family, I think we will become nearer

to what President J. Reuben Clark Jr., advised us way back in 1937." (In

Welfare Conference, 1 October 1966.)

...There are blessings in being close to the soil, in raising your own

food even if it is only a garden in your yard or a fruit tree or two.

Those families will be fortunate who, in the last days, have an adequate

supply of food because of their foresight and ability to produce their

own.

...Let every head of every household see to it that he has on hand

enough food and clothing, and, where possible, fuel also, for at least a

year ahead. You of small means put your money of foodstuffs and wearing

apparel, not in stocks and bonds; you of large means will think you know

how to care for yourselves, but I may venture to suggest that you do not

speculate. Let every head of every household aim to own his own home,

free from mortgage. Let every man who has a garden spot, garden it;

every man who owns a farm, farm it." (President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., in

Conference Report, Apr. 1937, p. 26.)

...You do not need to go into debt, may I add, to obtain a year's

supply. Plan to build up your food supply just as you would a savings

account. Save a little for storage each pay-check. Can or bottle fruit

and vegetables from your gardens and orchards. Learn how to preserve

food through drying and possibly freezing. Make your storage a part of

your budget. Store seeds and have sufficient tool on hand to do the job.

If you are saving and planning for a second car or a TV set or some item

which merely adds to your comfort or pleasure, you may need to change

your priorities. We urge you to do this prayerfully and DO IT NOW.

I speak with a feeling of great urgency. I have seen what the days of

tribulation can do to people. I have seen hunger stalk the streets of

Europe. I have witnessed the appalling, emaciated shadows of human

figures. I have seen women and children scavange army garbage dumps for

scraps of food. Those scenes and nameless faces cannot be erased from my

memory.

...I shall never forget the Saints of Hamburg who appeared on the verge

of collapse from starvation, or their small children who I invited to

come to the stand as we emptied our pockets of edibles. Most had never

seen these items before because of the wartime conditions. Nor can I

forget the expectant and nursing mothers who eyes watered with tears

when we gave then each an orange. We saw the terrible physical and

social side effects of hunger and malnutrition. One sister walked over a

thousand miles with four small children, leaving her home in Poland. She

lost all four to starvation and the freezing conditions. Yet she stood

before us in her emaciated condition, her clothing shredded, and her

feet wrapped in burlap, and bore testimony of hous blessed she was.

...Nor will I ever forget the faith of the Dutch Saints who accepted our

suggestion to frow potatoes to alleviate their own starving conditions,

and then send a portion of their first harvest to the German people who

had been their bitter enemies. The following year they sent them the

entire harvest. The annals of Church history have seldom recorded a more

Christlike act of love and compassion.

...Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that

the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot

happen here. Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the

revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them. Those who smugly

think these calamities will not happen, that they somehow will be set

aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will

rue the day they harbored such a delusion.

The Lord has warned and forewarned us against a day of great

tribulation and given us counsel, through His servants, on how we can be

prepared for these difficult times. Have we heeded His counsel?

...I bear you my testimony that President Heber J. Grant was inspired of

the Lord in establishing the Church Welfare program. The First

Presidency was inspired when they made the first public annoucement in

1936 and declared the prime purpose of Church welfare was "to help the

people help themselves." (in Conference Report, Oct. 1936, p.3) I bear

witness to that inspired counsel from 1936 to the present day that the

Saints lay up a year's supply of food. When President Spencer W. Kimball

persistently admonishes the members to plant gardens and fruit trees and

produce our own food, he is likewise inspired of the Lord.

Be faithful, my brothers and sisters, to this counsel and you will be

blessed - yes, the most blessed people in all the earth. You are a good

people. I know that. But all of us need to be better than we are. Let us

be in a position so we are able to not only feed ourselves through home

production and storage, but others as well.

May God bless us to be prepared for the days which lie ahead, which

may be the most severe yet.

Barbara B. Smith

April Conference, 1981

I have thought about the emergency preparation necessary when Noah's

ark was made ready. Noah must have achieved the most effective welfare

planning in the history of mankind when he very carefully followed the

Lord's counsel and built the ark. His wife and their sons undoubtedly

worked and planned with him so that the blessings of the Lord might be

theirs. Just think of preparing a year's supply for those multitudes of

animals which he brought into the ark. Noah and his family must have

been able to plan and provide in such a way that they could find

pleasure in their efforts (selecting just the right two of each animal),

adventure in their voyage (surely there were new little furry creatures

almost weekly), and joy as the splendor of the very first rainbow filled

the sky, and the Lord's promise was fulfilled.

Marion G. Romney

"Ensign," April 1981

It has also been my intention to encourage all Latter-day Saints to

review again their personal and family preparedness and to implement

immediately the principles and practices that will ensure their

self-sufficiency. If we will discuss these truths in our family councils

and make a plan to do all in our power to live these principles, we

shall all enjoy the promise of the Lord, "If ye are prepared ye shall

not fear." (D&C 38:30.)

...What, then, does it mean to be prepared? Someone proposed a serious

question to me a few years ago by asking, "What is the most important

item to have stored in your year's supply?" My response was seriously

given-"personal righteousness."

...It is important for us to have, as we have been counseled, a year's

supply of food and clothing, and where possible, fuel. We have also been

counseled that we should have a reserve of cash to meet emergencies and

to carry adequate health, home, and life insurance. Personal and family

preparedness, however, is much broader than these tangibles. It must

include proper attitudes, a willingness to forego luxuries, prayerful

consideration of all major purchases, and learning to live within our

means.

Sadly, surveys show that there are many of us who have not followed

this counsel, believing evidently, that the Church can and will take

care of us.

Mark E. Peterson (Apostle, 1944-1974)

April Conference, 1981

There are many very good people who keep most of the Lord's

commandments with respect to the virtuous side of life, but who overlook

His commandments in temporal things. They do not heed His warning to

prepare for a possible future emergency, apparently feeling that in the

midst of all this trouble "it won't happen to us." It is not always the

other fellow's problem. It is our problem also whenever there is

economic trouble afloat.

To prepare for the future is part of God's eternal plan, both

spiritually and temporally. To protect ourselves against reversals and

hardships is only good sense.

...That great program teaches us to put away one year's supply of our

necessities-not the frills and the superfluities. We can get along

without the frosting on the cake, can't we, or the whipped cream on the

apple pie?

And if necessary we can get along just fine without the cake or the

pie, can't we, and just be glad for the staples of life?

...But the most important storehouses in the entire welfare plan are

those that are within the walls of our own homes. We must provide our

own storehouses for our own families in our own homes as far away as

possible to meet any rainy days that may come our way.

...He teaches us to be self-reliant and industrious, to plan ahead, to

provide for possible hard times, to avoid obligations unless we are sure

we can handle them, and then _to serve him_ with such devotion that He

will be pleased to augment all of our own earnest efforts.

L. Tom Perry

April Conference, 1981

It is time to teach the basics-again. It is time to make the number

one priority of our welfare efforts personal and family preparedness. We

must prepare now so that in time of need more of our members will be

able to draw upon their own preparedness and not have to seek assistance

from the Church.

...Personal and family preparedness planning must begin with the family

executive committee. Planning must be tailored to fit the circumstances

of each family. Consideration must be given to their unique requirements

in career development, financial and resource management, education,

physical health, home production and storage, and social, emotional, and

spiritual strength.

...How grateful I am for a father who had the patience to teach me the

art of gardening. How frustrating it must have been in this teaching

process to find a neat row of weeds still in the ground after I'd

completed one of my assignments. Our family was taught not only the art

of stacking and rotating cans and bottles on shelves, but also how to

grow and replace the fruits and vegetables necessary to fill the empty

cans and bottles again.

...With such alarming results we must remind ourselves that the Church

welfare system was never designed or intended to care for the healthy

member who, as a result of his poor management of lack of preparation,

has found himself in difficulty. It was designed to assist the

membership in case of a large, physical disaster, such as an earthquake

or a flood. It was designed to assist the ill, the injured, the

incapacitated, and to rehabilitate them to a productive life. In far too

many cases, members who should be making use of their own preparedness

provisions are finding that there is nothing there and that they have to

turn to the Church.

Spencer W. Kimball

April Conference, 1981

Where you have a plot of land, however small, plant a garden. Staying

close to the soil is good for the soul. Purchase your essentials wisely

and carefully. Strive to save a portion of that which you earn. Do not

mistake many wants for basic needs.

Boyd K. Packer

April Conference, 1982

Let me give you a modern-day example. President Kimball has been

President of the Church for eight years. In virtually every conference

sermon he has included at least a sentence telling us to clean up, paint

up, and fix up our property. Many of us have paid little attention to

the counsel.

Question: Why would a prophet tell us to do that? Has he no great

prophecies to utter?

But, is that not a form of prophecy? For has he not said to us over

and over again, "Take good care of your material possesions, for the day

will come when they will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace."

...For some reason, we expect to hear, particularly in welfare sessions,

some ominous great predictions of calamities to come. Instead, we hear

quiet counsel on ordinary things which, if followed, will protect us in

times of great calamity.

F. Enzio Busche (Seventy, 1977)

"Ensign," June 1982

Frequently I am asked, "What were the most valuable items in the days

of starvation in Germany?"

...As for what we needed, the food item we relied on most was vegetable

oil. With a bottle of vegetable oil, one could acquire nearly every

other desirable item. It had such value that with a quart of vegetable

oil one could probably trade for three bushels of apples or three

hundred pounds of potatoes. Vegetable oil has a high calorie content, is

easy to transport, and in cooking can give a tasty flavor to all kinds

of food items that one would not normally consider as food - wild

flowers, wild plants, and roots from shrubs and trees. For me and my

family, a high-quality vegetable oil has the highest priority in our

food storage, both in times of daily use and for emergency use. When

vegetable oil is well-packed and stored appropriately, it has a long

storage life without the necessity of refrigeration. We found ours to be

in very good condition after twenty years of storage, but circumstances

may vary in different countries and with different supplies.

...The second highest priority item _for me and my family_ is grain in

all its forms, preferably wheat and rye. When grain is well-packed and

well-preserved, it too is easy to transport, easy to store, and will

last for generations.

A third priority item is honey. Its value in daily usage is

immeasurable. My family prefers honey rather than sugar because our

experience supports some of the research findings regarding the

preeminence of honey. Another reason I prefer honey is because during

the starvation period in postwar Germany, honey could be traded for

three times as much as sugar; its value was considered that much

greater.

A fourth important food storage product is powdered milk. These four

basic items - oil, wheat, honey, and milk (or their equivalents in other

cultures) - together with water, salt, and renewable basic foods such as

potatoes and other vegetables, can satisfy nutritional requirements in

times of emergency and also are valuable and usable in normal daily

life.

You might ask, "What about the many other food items and desserts

that play an important role in our eating habits?" I shall always

treasure the great experience I had in those hard times, when I learned

to appreciate food with the most balanced nutrients. When a person is

very hungry, the taste of food will change for him. In times of

emergency, the Lord seems to provide a way to help our bodies adapt.

...When we think in terms of our own year's supply of those foods and

materials we use on a regular basis, we may feel that every family will

have to store everything. This, of course, is not easy and seems to make

storage difficult. However, let me offer this comforting idea based on

past experience. We need to take into consideration that in difficult

times, so long as there survives more than one family, there will be

trading of valuable items. A free market will begin immediately to

satisfy the needs of the people, and items in greatest demand will set

the price, bypassing the use of money. The ingeniousness of mankind

becomes evident in times of need. When man is presented with a problem

or challenge, if he is in a healthy spirit - which hopefully we are - he

will find solutions that he never dreamed of. When a person has a good,

healthy spirit, is able to adjust and is not afraid to use his

imagination, he will find ways to survive.

There is a long way from the point of hunger to actual starvation,

and there is much that one can do to stay alive in hard times,

especially when one is mentally and physically prepared. A garden, even

as small as a window box, is of great value, as is the skill to be able

to plant and to grow things. Following the war, in addition to having a

small garden, my family was able to obtain the milk we needed by keeping

a milk sheep, which gave enough milk for our family for the greater part

of the year. (I have not seen this species in America, but it was very

common in Germany.) Besides milk, our sheep supplied us with wool to

trade or to use for knitting items. During the spring of the year it

we would give birth to one or two lambs which could also be used for food

or trade. Some of our neighbors had goats, but we preferred sheep

because of the wool and because sheep seemed easier to tolerate and to

work with. They required very little extra care and were easy to

satisfy. Also, all over the country, even the large cities, people began

to keep rabbits in small pens, and children had the task of looking for

grass, dandelions, and leaves in order to feed their rabbits. In

addition, people kept hens, and chicken coops were prevalent in all

places. Because grain was too valuable to feed to chickens, other

sources of chicken feed had to be found. Children found ways of breeding

worms, beetles, and flies to be used for this purpose. People also built

small, wooden handcarts which could be used to transport items used for

trading, which took place wherever people met.

There are some other observations one could also make: The true

nature of people becomes obvious in times of real need. Good people

become better; they get close to one another; they learn to share and

become united. The strength that develops out of unity of the many good

people becomes a real survival factor. On the other hand, people who

lack emotional stability become cruel and ruthless under trying

circumstances; however, they do not seem to become an overbearing threat

because of the closeness and unity of the majority of the people.

Therefore, strangely enough, those who have suffered hardships look back

with find memories to the awful period of pain and destruction because

they recall the closeness that developed as they united themselves to

survive by sharing whatever they had.

Victor L. Brown

October Conference, 1982

In 1970, President Harold B. Lee said, "For thirty years the leaders

of this church have been telling us to store food and to prepare for a

e: The true

rainy day. We have listened, many have paid no attention, and now

suddenyl disaster begins to strike and some of those who have been

slothful are running to the banks and taking out their savings and

buying...foodstuffs." (Welfare agricultural meeting, 4 April 1970.)

Marion G. Romney

October Conference, 1982

Can we see how critical self-reliance becomes when looked upon as the

prerequisite to service, when we all know service is what Godhood is all

about? Without self-reliance one cannot exercise these innane desires to

serve. How can we give if there is nothing there? Food for the hungry

cannot come from empty shelves. Money to assist the needy cannot come

from an empty purse. Support and understanding cannot come from the

emotionally starved. Teaching cannot come from the unlearned. And most

important of all, spiritual guidance cannot come from the spiritually

weak.

Gordon B. Hinckley

(Asst. to the Twelve, 1958; Apostle, 1961; Counselor to President

Spencer W. Kimball, 1981; Second counselor, 1982; First counselor to

President Ezra Taft Benson, 1985; First counselor to President Howard W.

Hunter, 1993, President of the Church, 1995)

"Ensign," July 1984

I am profoundly grateful for the essence of that spirit of

helpfulness which has come down through the generations and which has

been so evident in the troubles Latter-day Saints experience in time of

disaster and difficulty. The mayor of Salt Lake City told me that when

the Salt Lake City flood situation became serious one Sunday afternoon

in 1983 that he called a stake president. Within a very short time 4,000

volunteers showed up. The story of such mutual helpfulness caught the

attention of many individuals and publications across the nation.

Latter-day Saints, working together with their neighbors of others

faith, have labored with one another in times of distress and have been

heralded on radio and television, in newspapers and magazines. Writers

have treated it as if it were a new and unique phenomenon.

Gordon B. Hinckley

October Conference, 1985

"What about the arms race, and particularly the nuclear arms

buildup?"

"Again, it is a sad commentary on our civilization that the peace of

the world hangs on a balance of terror. No one understanding the facts

can doubt that a rash decision could lead to the extermination of the

race. It is to be hoped that representatives of the great powers will

continue to talk and will seek with sincere and earnest desire to find

ways to ameliorate that terrible threat which hangs over the world. I am

of the opinion that if a catastrophe is to be avoided, there must be

widely cultivated a strong and compelling will for peace on the part of

men and women in all nations. Let us, who are followers of the Prince of

Peace, pray with great faith, in His name, that the world may be spared

a consuming catastrophe that could come from some misadventure."

Russel M. Nelson (Apostle, 1984)

April Conference, 1986

An important part of the Lord's storehouse is maintained as a year's

supply, stored, where possible, in the homes of faithful families of the

Church.

James E. Faust

(Asst. to the Twelve, 1972; Seventy, 1976; Apostle, 1978, Second

counselor to President Gordon B. Hinckley, 1995)

April Conference, 1986

The old couplet "Waste not, want not" still has much merit. Frugality

requires that we live within our income and save a little for a rainy

day, which always seems to come.

Glenn L. Pace (Second counselor to Presiding Bishop Robert D. Hales,

1985)

Quoting Marion G. Romney

April Conference, 1986

He made the process sound so simple. "Brother Pace, don't make things

so complicated! All we have been trying to do is make our people

self-reliant, because the more self-reliant one is, the more able to

serve he becomes, and the more he serves, the greater his

sanctification."

James E. Faust

April Conference, 1986

President Spencer W. Kimball counseled: "I hope that we understand

that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing

food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables,

it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special

chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do

we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting,

cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest? And how do we measure

the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful

canning? Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the

greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we live

providently and extend to our children their pioneer heritage." (In

Conference Report, Oct. 1977, p. 125; Ensign, Nov. 1977, p. 78.) This

heritage includes teaching our children how to work.

...The counsel to have a year's supply of basic food, clothing, and

commodities was given fifty years ago and has been repeated many times

since. Every father and mother are the family's storekeepers. They

should store whatever their own family would like to have in the case of

an emergency. Most of us cannot afford to store a year's supply of

luxury items, but find it more pratical to store staples that might keep

us from starving in case of emergency. Surely we all hope that the hour

of need will never come. Some have said, "We have followed this counsel

in the past and have never had need to use our year's supply, so we have

difficulty keeping this in mind as a major priority." Perhaps following

this counsel could be the reason why they have not needed to use their

reserve. By continued rotation of the supply it could be kept usable

with no waste.

The Church cannot be expected to provide for every one of its

millions of members in case of public or personal disaster. It is

therefore necessary that each home and family do what they can to assume

the responsibility for their own hour of need. If we do not have the

resources to acquire a year's supply, then we can strive to begin with

having one month's supply. I believe if we are provident and wise in the

management of our personal and family affairs and are faithful, God will

sustain us through our trials. He has revealed: "For the earth is full,

and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have

The rue

given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves." (D&C

104:17.)

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