Monday Message

If ever there was a time to take food storage serious NOW is the time.

“The revelation to store food may be as essential to our temporal salvation today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah.” (Ezra Taft Benson, October 1973)

I have decided to issue you a challenge to work extra hard on your storage. Let's see how much you can do by the end of the year... From those who have very little money to those who have a lot of money. Make a plan, draw up a plan. Those with more money, this will be a bit easier. Those with less money, you will need to be more creative. Those with more money your job is to collect your storage.

Use all options... 
http://store.lds.org/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Category3_715839595_10557_3074457345616706237_-1_N_image_0 - here you can order the church items. We no longer travel to Omaha as canneries are closed. This is great for when I can get dry milk.

Buy in bulk at Sam’s - flour, rice, beans, yeast, popcorn, sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar. I am wanting you to stick to basics, don’t be fooled that everything there is a good deal. I get cheese there and in the past when chicken boneless skinless breasts were on sale I would buy cases and can it. I also get siran wrap there.

Bulk buy your whole wheat berries, not the flour, you want the wheat berries. This you can get at Walmart and if you need more than is on the shelf ask Walmart to get what you are wanting.

Aldi’s is the big winner on canned goods. Stock up for things you don’t can like pineapple, mushrooms, apple sauce, your pie fillings, their salsa is great to stock up on.  

Fareway I get sale items and meat.

Dollar Tree I get liquid dish soap, shampoos, toothpaste, deodorant, garbage bags, freezer bags, some first aid things etc.

Watch your sales like a hawk. I am sorry I throw Hy-Vee off the list due to being too expensive but I do buy my bread bags from them. If money is no problem than this is another option for you.

I even check the flyers to see what is on sale when I don't plan on shopping. The sale ads are online if they don’t come to you in a midweek mailer. If there is a loss leader that is something you use now would be the stock up time.

I have heard all the time "I don’t have time to go to more than one store" or "it is too much work." It is a lot of work and hauling it is a lot of work and cooking from scratch is a lot of work but you need to push yourself. Your family is depending on you following the warnings of many Prophets. If you think going to the church is your plan then why is it we have been warned to store???????  Because if a world wide calamity would hit, the church can only feed two or three percent and remember you have been warned to have gotten in your storage. The church has helped with this by canneries in the past and with this ordering site. Why would they do this if they were not trying to help you?  

You have been asked to grow what you can. You have been asked to learn the skills that would help your family in time of need. This is not something that goes out of date. They did not say "well, we can stop on this certain year" - no, we are still encouraged to do this!

Food storage is not an out of date thing or old fashioned, that is not true. If ever there was a time to take this serious NOW is the time.

I can hear you shaking your head and thinking oh that Sister Shook, she likes food storage, it is her thing. Guess you don’t know me very well. I love to read and knit and be a grammy, but I know that this is a very important thing you should not shrug off… I can think of thousands of things I would rather do than plant a garden and fight skeeters and process the food or drag home heavy food storage to put in containers to lug to the basement and rotate it, to lug it up and start all over again. 

Yes, a life of ease sounds easier but we live on our storage and all our struggles in our life have prepared me for now. What a blessing. I think if you had a hard time you can appreciate it and be compelled to get your storage up. If you have not then take my word for it, get your storage up. Build on your skills.

"Too often we bask in 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 will somehow 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 you (we) heeded His counsel?" Ezra Taft Benson, Jun. 1980.

"'And there shall arise after them seven years of famine ... And God will shortly bring it to pass.' Now brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But, I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order ... avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage... There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give head. We are carrying a message of self reliance throughout the Church... I urge you brethren to look to the condition of our finances..." Gordon B. Hinkley, October Conference 1998.

"The time will come when we will be obliged to depend upon our own resources; for the time is not far distant when the curtain will be dropped between us and the United States. When the time comes, brethren and sisters, you will wish you had commenced sooner to make your own clothing. I tell you, God requires us to go into home manufacture; and, prolong it as much as you like, you have got to do it." Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 5, p. 10, July 5, 1857.

"A spirit of speculation and extravagance will take possession of the Saints [in the last days], and the results will be financial bondage. Persecution comes next and all true Latter-day Saints will be tested to the limit." Heber C. Kimball, Deseret News, May 23, 1931.

"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?" (Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, November 1980)

"When the economies of nations fail, when famine and other disasters prevent people from buying food in stores, the Saints must be prepared to handle these emergencies." (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 264.)

“Noah heeded God’s command to build an ark...that they might be saved from the floodwaters…Yet there was no evidence of rain and flood…His actions were considered irrational…The sun was shining and life moved forward as usual. But time ran out…The floods came, the disobedient were drowned… When God speaks and we obey, we will always be right” T.S. Monson Ensign 10-07

"For over 100 years we have been admonished to store up grain. ‘Remember the counsel that is given,’ said Elder Orson Hyde, ‘Store up all your grain, and take care of it!... And I tell you it is almost as necessary to have bread to sustain the body as it is to have food for the spirit.’ (Ezra Taft Benson, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 5, p. 17)

..."We encourage you to grow all the food that you feasibly can on your own property. Berry bushes, grapevines, fruit trees—plant them if your climate is right for their growth. Grow vegetables and eat them from your own yards. Even those residing in apartments or condominiums can generally grow a little food in pots and planters. Study the best methods of providing your own foods. Make your garden neat and attractive as well as productive. If there are children in your home, involve them in the process with assigned responsibilities...Develop your skills in your home preservation and storage. We reaffirm the previous counsel the Church has always given, to acquire and maintain a year’s supply—a year’s supply of the basic commodities for us. We encourage families to have on hand this year’s supply; and we say it over and over and over and repeat over and over the scripture of the Lord where He says, ‘Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?’ How empty it is as they put their spirituality, so-called, into action and call him by his important names, but fail to do the things which he says. Spencer W. Kimball (April Conference, 1976)

If these quotes don’t give you serious thought...

Make a list of every store you go into and why. After a week look at this list, analyze this list. Did you need to go to the store? Was what you went for the only thing you got? Track your spending. How could you improve?

If you are on a tighter budget you have no choice but to be creative. How can we stock? I already mentioned some stores, there are others you may live closer too, like Costco.

So how can you be creative? As you have a set budget for groceries, in your budget keep to that amount, now plan less expensive meals and plan to cook from scratch and see what a difference it makes. The difference can now go into food storage. I mentioned a place to start but if it seems overwhelming then work on your three month supply first and again I suggest -http://everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/book-2.html  this method is sound too. I have this printed and in my food storage notebook.

I want you to be seriously getting in your storage. It is more important than the current fad, more important than finding shoes that can go with an outfit cause just pick a pair that goes with everything for now, more important than boats and new cars and such, once you have it in and still want those things, go for it, but keep that storage up.
I know i have lost many of you by now but ask yourself why am i waiting just do it while your at it can you mend or sew a dress why not????? do you go to goodwill or yard sales for school clothes? why not?

I WANT you to watch these YouTube clips of Wendy's seminar. I painfully got them in order just so you can see them in order. Food storage with chocolate in it? Whaaaaat? Yep! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGaTlwYs-s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUaFMEyLXOM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woLOnURFiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Drrd2wt8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE5WVOqLp2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33bovjbt8nk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vigcycRhWs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XWoeWRDdI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoYHLW8HR7Y

Ok, remember I want to have you make serious strides in getting in your storage by the end of the year... If you are saying yes but I have mine in than Hurray! But now start stocking for your kids, food storage is a wonderful gift to give or to get.

After watching the clips of Wendy it will give you more to add to your yard sale list.

Also for those of you in Ankeny, the Goodwill in your town there was a dehydrator sighting and not at all a bad price, make sure you plug it in, check for an on/off switch if it does not already start.

Keep working on both storage and skills and report to me your progress!