"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 years supply? Do we have to share with them? No, we dont have to sharewe get to share! Let us not be concerned about silly thoughts of whether we would share or not. Of course we would share! What would Jesus do? I could not possibly eat food and see my neighbors starving. And if you starve to death after sharing, greater love hath no man than this " (John 15:13.)
Consider this comparison. In the welfare program we have been counseled for generations by the leaders of the Church to secure for ourselves a year's supply of food and clothing, and if possible fuel, and to be concerned for our shelter. This is a responsibility laid upon the individual members of the Church, upon each family. The commodities are to be stored at home. They are to be privately purchased, privately stored, and in time of crisis privately used.
It is not ever suggested that because we have bishop's storehouses there would be no need for individual families to maintain their year's supply. The counsel for the individual to protect himself and his family has never been withdrawn. It has been continually emphasized.
Charity has it's place, but too many members think that they can live off the testimony...err...ummm....food storage of others without being obedient to the principle. It is one thing to be unable to prepare and another to be willfully disobedient.
I have never heard a member or non-member state he or she, if in need, would turn to another demanding a share in the other's provisons. I have heard and read from other people of such cases, but I myself have never heard anyone say he/she would demand of forceably take provisons from another.
I can envisions members being asked, under certain imaginable circumstances, by their local church and/or civil authorities, to pool especially their storage food, to be shared with others, either on the ward/branch level or on the community level.
-- Edited by lundbaek on Friday 11th of September 2009 06:57:28 AM
I've heard it. I've heard it said to me that they are coming to my house. I've heard the ones who were serious about it too. I've heard the non-member say they own guns and will just go to their LDS neighbors and take what they need. The mentality is real.
I think we are having this discussion from the premise that there will be a drastic, singular, wide-spread crisis in the future. And we fear a dichotomy. For whatever reason: you have a year supply and you're fine; you don't have a year supply and you're screwed.
I don't think it will be that simple, and for that reason, simplistic assumptions about sharing or withholding are irrelevant. What of cash savings, education, home ownership, debt, gardening, fuel and energy? How do we help in our communities and neighborhoods in case of an emergency. There are many facets to temporal preparation, not just a year supply of food.
Here is my personal angle: I am currently in professional school with a wife and five children. So we are doing the educational preparedness. We own our home debt free, so home ownership is not an issue right now. However, cash savings are zero since I work part time on the weekends and live off student loans ( I do have mutual funds, but according to the prophet Beck I should have cashed them out a long time ago and gone to gold. Whatever...). Whenever we do accrue some funds, within months they are depleted due to car repairs, trips, etc.. Our food storage is probably down to six months since we've had to dip into it with some frequency over the last three years. We've been the beneficiaries of our own obedience, and learned some lessons in where we lack. All of this is present tense. Blessings have poured down, more because of the tender mercies of the Lord more than our righteousness. I trust that will continue as long as we are trying.
In summary, the prophets have counseled us to do much for temporal preparation for whatever may come. If I have a surplus I'd be happy to help someone out, but I'm not required to. It's a choice and sometimes your family will come first. But not every time. If a mob comes to your home demanding your wheat after a national emergency, the Spirit will give you direction. If a poor destitute woman with three emaciated children comes to your door asking for help, the Spirit will give you direction. And everything in between, if you are worthy, the Spirit will give you direction.
I think we are having this discussion from the premise that there will be a drastic, singular, wide-spread crisis in the future.
You are correct. The premise being discussed is also based on prophetic statements from our modern day prophets and apostles. The principle of food storage/emergency preparedness is a last days calamitous principle. That said, there are no doubt blessings obtained for obdience no matter what reason you use. Those of us who have lived off our storage for reasons far more "mundane" were still blessed for having been obedient. It does not change the true nature of the principle of preparedness.
Fregramis also wrote:if you are worthy, the Spirit will give you direction.
I don't think anyone around here has ever disagreed with this principle about charity either.
My frame of reference, on which I was thinking when I posted that Vaughn Featherstone statement, was a few days years ago in Belfast, N. Ireland, during a dock strike. 3 days into it there was nothing worth eating left in the shops and markets, gasoline was running out, and El-power was limited to two 3-hour blocks each 24 hours. People in that area were travelling or driving into the Irish Republic to buy food and gasoline.
DMGNUT from another forum is a truck driver Mirkwood and I know personally and from another forum. He came to a preparedness exhibition in our ward a while back and told us how easily food supplies could be cut off by a trucking shutdown.
Our particular experience with the type of senarios Fregramis suggests demonstrated to us the importance of financial savings. There are quite a few 'palaces" abandnoned and/or up for sale in the Phoenix, AZ area, and I guess in other places as well. I wonder if the people who left them would still be living in a nice home if they had been frugal with their homes and cars.
Fregamis, what are you studying for? I hope it is a field with a reasonably secure future.
I'm in a Doctor of Pharmacy program and I'll graduate in May 2012.
As far as a situation where food storage might come in handy would be in a quarantine situation. I just read that a student at Cornell University died of swine flu. Kind of spooky.
I'll share as I'm inspired to share, and I do imagine that that will happen. Right now it isn't a question for me, because I get to rebuild part of my food supply. I'd be the one asking others for help, but I imagine that the Lord will bless me because I did follow His counsel and, due to circumstances out of my control, I need to rebuild that supply.
__________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
President Spencer W. Kimball identified who the Ten Virgins are in the Church. "I believe that the Ten Virgins represent the people of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,and not the rank and file of the world.All of the virgins, wise and foolish, had accepted the invitation to the wedding supper. They had knowledge of the program and had been warned of the important day to come. They (the foolish) knew the way, but gave only a small measure of loyalty and devotion. I ask you, what value is a car without an engine, a cup without water, a table without food, or a lamp without oil? Hundreds of thousands of us today are in this position. Confidence has been dulled and patience worn thin. It is so hard to wait and be prepared always. But we cannot allow ourselves to slumber.The Lord has given us this parable as a special warning. The foolish asked others to share their oil, but spiritual (as well as temporal) preparedness cannot be shared in an instant. The wise had to go, else the bridegroom would have gone unwelcomed. They needed all their oil for themselves, they could not save the foolish. The responsibility was each for himself".
(From: Faith Precedes The Miracle, pg. 253)
Bottom line is... it's your food storage to use as you see fit, or to share if you are prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so. It is not your Bishop's or even the Church's. We should try to store extra, but we can only do so much, in regards to caring for those who are unable or unwilling to obtain their own. If they (the unprepared members of the Church) don't have faith enough to follow the Lord's guidance, to store food. Where are they going to get faith enough to have it miraculously increased, as in the story of the widow?
There will be much pressure, even persecution, from many of those same unprepared members, who will insist that you must share. But I would ask you, "Which child are you going to have starve, so that you can feed the disobedient?" Your own family, is your stewardship first and for most.
In an old Church pamphlet, was found the words of Ernest Wilkinson, who said, "Our responsibility in this regard (speaking of food storage) is first to our family, then to those who were not warned (meaning non members), and lastly, to the disobedient members of the Church".
And that's all I have to say about that...
-- Edited by DMGNUT on Friday 19th of February 2010 11:51:49 PM
Excerpt from the talk I just gave in Stake Conference:
Elder Marion G. Romney said,
Never forget this matter of providing for yourselves, even though you don't hear as much about it now as you did a few years ago. Remember that it is still a fundamental principle, one that has been taught the Saints ever since they came to these valleys of the mountains.
Brothers and Sisters, the responsibility to prepare is our own. Brethren, as Priesthood holders we are to lead out in our home. It is our responsibility to care for our families. Our wives can support and assist us in this matter, but the Priesthood is the head of the home and is entrusted to lead. The responsibility to prepare lies within the individual family.
Elder J. Richard Clarke clearly pointed this out when he said,
There is no way the Church, as an institution, intends to assume the responsibility that rightfully belongs to the individual. The welfare program was never designed to do so. Personal and family preparedness is the Lord's way.
Elder Faust reinforced this when he said,
"The Church cannot be expected to provide for every one of its millions of members in case of public or personal disaster."
