Sunday, July 17, 2011

In 1974 I joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  Twice a year we have general conference in April and October.  The Prophet and Apostles and other leaders have always spoken on being prepared until a few years ago.  Suddenly they talk on Faith, Hope and Charity.  Well the time for warning is past.  We have either listened in the past and gotten prepared or we haven't.  In our church being prepared is a multi faceted item.   1st, you must be Spiritually Prepared.  Without the Spirit to guide you, you are already lost.  So being Spiritually prepared is the most important preparation!  I am in no way telling all of you to dash out and join the LDS Church!  If you want to learn more by all means come and learn!  You can go to http://mormon.org/  to learn more about our church if you want to!  But out of all those who take our missionary discussions to learn more about our church less than 20% take it any further.  Most say thank you and go their own way, which is fine, we really don't want converts unless they truly believe that our church is true.  So relax and just get your self spiritually prepared however you think you need to accomplish that! 

#2 Next we feel education is very, very important!  If you can't read the scriptures then you can't really get to know our Savior and learn how to act more like Him. I read the scriptures daily and have for years.  As I learn and grow spiritually I get new understanding of the same scriptures I read over and over throughout the years.  We should keep on learning to gain greater understanding in many things.  We believe "knowledge" is the only thing we get to take with us.  Spend each day of your life learning something new!

#3 is career development.   Being able to find work and get paid a decent wage so you can support your family.  Updating your job skills and learning more so you can advance as you go.

#4 Financial and Resource Management.  The Lord has blessed us greatly.  Are we good stewards of all He has given us?  I confess, my husband and I were not good stewards to start with.  We had to reach a point where we realized we had messed up badly and gotten way over our heads before we could get this point down.  We went to the Lord with very humble hearts letting Him know we had done this all ourselves and knew we needed His help to get out of the mess.  It was painful.  We both worked 2 and 3 jobs for a few years and He blessed us richly for our hard work.  We still have a Mortgage but are trying to work through that also.  If we had started out as good stewards we wouldn't have to go get jobs in our retirement to get the house paid off!  We made sure our children knew how we had messed up so they could learn from our mistakes.  One has bought a house with a 35% down payment so he has a low house payment and has been able to make two payments a month until this month when he lost his job.  But now he can work a minimum wage job and get by if he has to!  All the kids bought used cars with cash and most saved up and are going to school via cash instead of student loans.  Hopefully they and you will be much better stewards than My husband and I were! 

#5  Home Production and Storage.  This is what I will focus on most of the time.  Storing food and learning to garden and having what we need put away.

#6 Physical Health   Eating properly and getting good exercise.  We believe our body is a temple from the Lord.  We only get one and it is sacred to us.   If we eat trash then we are showing a lack of respect to what the Lord gave us.  If we can't take care of ourselves and get exercise then our bodies fall apart on us and it's all our own fault.

If you would like to read some of our conference reports on being prepared I selected the 1979 April conference and suggest you read the one near the bottom by Bruce R McConkie titled "Stand Independent above all other creatures"     http://lds.org/general-conference/sessions/1979/04?lang=eng   


Have a blessed day!
Cherlynn

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