7th September

Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to the Welfare day set up by the Bayswater / Mooroolbark wards. It was an informative day of stalls and information classes including: fire safety, managing finances, Home storage, Time management ( which I missed coz I was running late!) and mental strength. I met some very interesting people and came home with a nice little bundle of new recipes to try out. I also discovered who knows how to make both soft and hard cheese and I intend to add it to the welfare know how classes early next year.

Brothers and Sisters in what way can I help you to help yourselves become more prepared? I am at your service. Please let me know, even if you want to come around for a hot chocolate and a chat to fully cover everything you want to learn, I make a pretty good hot chocolate and I want very much to be of service. Put me to use my brothers and sisters.

On and off over the years we hear others say or even say ourselves that if the time came to rely on our storage we would not share with those who heeded not the counsel to prepare. Vaughn J Featherstone can put this to rest for us and for others when he said during the 1976 April conference ‘... I should like to address a few remarks to those who ask, ‘Do I share with my
neighbors who have not followed the counsel? And what about the nonmembers who do not have a year’s supply? Do we have to share with them?’ - No we don’t have to share -- we get to share! Let us not be concerned about silly thoughts of whether we would share or not. Of course we would share!’

Also from 1976 April conference Marion G Romney quoted Brigham Young ‘... If we are to be saved in an ark, as Noah and his family were, it will be because we built it... My faith does not lead me to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc. He will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth, to make habitations,
to procure few boards to make a box, and when harvest cines, giving us the grain, it is for us to preserve it--to save the wheat until we have one, two, five or seven years provisions on hand, until there is enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking safety ... (the fulfillment of that prophecy is yet in the future)’

In 1980 October conference Ezra Taft Benson said ‘Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize the the ravagers of war, economic disaster, famine and earth quake 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 harboured such a delusion.’

Pretty straight forward and to the point for the Saints then and for us now. All of these trials are happening around us now. Some of it in this very country and we had better sit up and take notice. I am not without guilt here, I give thanks for the life I have and often times feel sure in my meager preparations. But no more, my brothers and sisters we need to be actively doing
what we can to prepare ourselves and our families and then get out there and help others to prepare. Not just food storage but every aspect of the gospel and its doctrine needs to be in place in our lives so that we may stand firm and sure in the days to come.

We can be as the the people the Lord called Zion ( Moses 7:17-18) of one heart and one mind. We can dwell in righteousness and have no poor among us. No poor of purse, of understanding, of heart, of want. The elect of the Lord are saved for the last days, if it is not us, it is our children to follow, we must help them so that they may indeed be the strongest and most faithful
and be able to endure all things to come. Make a start come to HFPE this Wednesday and learn from the Grotaers, by all accounts they are an incredible wealth of information. Men I know HFPE is for the women so if you want to know what they have to share ... send you women folk along to take notes for you.