Comments on: Homecoming

By: Lona Smith

Lona Smith — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 14:54:14 +0000

I used to think that having a years supply of food storage was a bit over the top. Right up until the Harmony,PA area was flooded out. All the supermarkets were on the other side of a closed bridge-and they were flooded out. They were closed for 2 weeks. Every road in or out of our valley was flooded and closed. The ONLY local business that was open was, of course, the bar. My food and water storage kept many households in our neighborhood from going without. The only thing I hadn’t stored was baby formula, cuz we didnt have a baby. I will add a few cans this time around just in case. The funniest part of this whole story is that we completely used up our food storage blessing our neighbors. Then we moved-from our roomy apartment to a mobile home. WAY less storage space. Do you think our church community has helped us to replace even a small portion of that food storage!! HAH!!! We now have ZERO food or water stored, but a great feeling of knowing that the idea has been passed along to people who didn’t even know they needed to do it. Now if I could just figure out where to store food in a mobile home…………….

By: goneagainfinnegan

goneagainfinnegan — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 03:16:44 +0000

Proselytizing family members, I played up the many cultural advantages of Latter-day Sainthood including the 72-hour kit, food storage, and emergency preparedness. However, the response I got was not what I hoped for; instead, I heard, \”Well, we\’ve got guns, and we know who has the food.\”

Somehow the fact that we know who has the bourbon and the guns…doesn\’t make me feel much more secure.

By: Jim F.

Jim F. — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 20:56:12 +0000

Kaimi, Ben was a philosophy grad student in Indiana. Now he is a philosophy professor in Virginia. Does that change the calculus?

By: Kaimi Wenger

Kaimi Wenger — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:14:52 +0000

Ben,

You’re a philosophy grad student in Indiana . . . I don’t know if proffering yourself as an example changes the calculus much. :P

By: cchrissyy

cchrissyy — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 03:25:11 +0000

23) our bird flu preparations include several bottles of pedialyte and medicines for fever and nausea for both kids and adults.
Don’t know if I believe bird flu will come. But when the next regular virus hts, we’ll all apreciate a saved trip to the drug store!

By: paul frandsen

paul frandsen — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:52:15 +0000

I have enjoyed the post Kaimi. The comments have also reinforced a vague unease I have always felt about placing too much faith in banks and portfolios–not that I’m relying on them heavily in my retirement planning. Thank you also for concrete examples of times in the last 50 years where money has been devalued to the point of being worthless. I’m not an economist by training.

By: Ben H

Ben H — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:58:48 +0000

Freaks!? Hey, by the time I was baptized, I had been sleeping on a bed made from wheat buckets for a good four years!

The main obstacle to proper food storage nowadays is nobody has a decent cellar any more, to keep it all cool and fresh . . .

By: MikeInWeHo

MikeInWeHo — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:42:49 +0000

re: 20, 21 Thanks for those great comments. They really gave me some new light and made me consider this issue again. I think you’ve converted me to the wisdom of the Church’s current approach. The bird flu comment in particular made tremendous sense. I’m going to seriously re-examine my family’s own preparedness now. Hard to imagine where I’ll put a year’s supply of food in my condo, but perhaps there is more that can be done.

By: annegb

annegb — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:54:29 +0000

Good post, Kaimi. When our kids were little and we were dirt poor, our food storage consisted of a lot of home canned vegetables and venison that Bill had killed and we’d butchered in the kitchen ourselves, and fish he’d caught.

Now that we’re older and don’t have any kids at home, I have things in my food storage like alfredo sauce and really good tuna fish. Plus the other stuff. There’s sort of a paradox about that. When you have lots of kids and really need lots of food storage, you can’t afford it.

But we’re planning on taking care of our kids, too.

By: Tatiana

Tatiana — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:53:26 +0000

Food storage is awesome! As a convert, I think it’s one of the coolest things about the church. You buy in bulk when prices are low, and save money, as someone said. Food is the ultimate form of cash. It makes a great savings account. I feel so secure and prepared because of my food storage. (I store everything, not just food. I store toilet paper, foil, laundry detergent, anything at all that I would be loth to do without.) There are ten bazillion different ways that society can break down, for the short or long term, and grocery store shelves can stop magically filling (bird flu is one that pops into my mind – there may be a few weeks at the height of a pandemic during which most everyone will be home sick, dying, or caring for family members, and not on the job at the power plant, or behind the wheel of their trucks). Sure, it’s possible that you will lose it, but that’s true of any possesssions, and it doesn’t stop us from acquiring them. =) Which percentage of calamities would cause me to lose my storage, versus those in which it would come in handy? I’m sure there are some, and yet I am extremely happy that I have prepared against what I can. It’s wise like having health insurance, or a retirement account. I absolutely love food storage.

It’s so interesting to me that the ways in which I feel the brethren are MOST WISE seem foolish to you guys. It makes me wonder if the things I kick my heels at are every bit as wise, but I just can’t see it. =)