Self Reliance

I was catching up on some reading in the Ensign last night and the theme of self reliance was mentioned in many of the talks. Our church leaders have been preparing, warning, guiding the members for these days of recession (P.S the unemployment rate just hit 8.1% in February). Marion G Romney had a great comparison in a General Conference talk given in 1982, pulled from a Reader's Digest, of what our government and our parents have taught the people of the United States to become:

“In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …
“The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.
“Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a handout.
“A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?
“Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.”

What a blessing it is to have spiritually inspired leaders on this earth, preparing the people for times of trial with Heavenly Father's message. We just have to listen for their warnings and act. Over the 3+ years Bryan and I have been married, we have never really thought much about food storage or saving cash for a rainy day. I guess we figured someone or something would bail us out. Who needs 100 pounds of wheat anyways? It is actually funny how often this very subject has come up in daily conversation. I would just brushed it aside saying "not yet", "we don't have the space", "maybe next year", or "thats for old people". I guess the Lord was just waiting for my heart to be soften? I don't know...

So now, Bryan and I are going to become self reliant. The Church has published a 4 step approach to building home storage. They are as follows:

1. Build a 3 month supply gradually

2. Store drinking water

3. Set aside a little money

4. Gradually establish a longer-term supply

This has now become our goal theme for 2009. Anyone have ideas for water storage?