week ending 10th August

I would like to share with you some very sage words from the Blackburn Ward Welfare Coordinator Carolyn Kwong.
‘It was pointed out that many of the pioneers had to suddenly move West with only a handcart for survival. Hopefully our storage, our garden edibles and our 72 hour emergency packs will never have to be modern day ‘handcarts’.’

In 1976 Spencer W Kimball said ‘The time to disregard this counsel is over ... We want you to be ready with your personal storehouses filled with at least a year’s supply. You don’t argue why it cannot be done; you just plan to organise and get it done.’

In 1988 President Gordon B Hinckley said ‘There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.’

Then most recently from the Church we have been counselled to keep a Three-Month Supply ‘Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.’ www.lds.org

It puts me to mind of the early days in the bible, Exodus 31-34. The Lord commanded Moses to cut two tablets of stone and bring them with him to the top of Mount Sinai where He, the Lord God, wrote on them with His finger the commandments which the people should follow. While Moses was away the people quickly forgot the Lord and looked for an idol, using the gold from their adornments they made a calf of gold to worship. The Lord was wrath with them and sought to destroy them because they had become a stiff necked people, yet Moses pleaded with the
Lord not to. After he came down from the mount with the tablets and saw for himself what the people had done Moses broke the tablets. The people could not live the law which he had received from the Lord. Later the Lord again bade him hew two stone tablets in which He would write the commandments upon. Moses then brought down these commandments, known to us as the ten commandments.

For close to, if not more than, seventy years now we have been counselled to prepare ourselves. First with a years supply and now a three month supply. How much longer will the Lord be lenient with us before He, as He was with the people led by Moses, is wrath with us.

President Hinckley said ‘Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the
commandments of God.’ The Times in Which We Live,” Ensign, Nov 2001, 72

The time for excuses is over, we need to do everything in our power to prepare ourselves and our families now.