The Blast Shelter

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Subject: LDS Prophets on “Survivalism” Prt 7
From: Oiled Lamp
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 22:20:05 -0500

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.)

(cont.)