Home Storage

Every August Kathleen and I vow we are going to attend one of the most popular classes at Education Week. You won't believe this, but the class is called Oh, Those Wonderful Grains! Apparently it is a popular class or they wouldn't offer it year after year. But somehow (go figure) we both find other classes that seem to have more appeal. Kathleen and I will be sorry one day when we need to eat that 40 pounds of wheat that is stored in the basement. So instead of passing on information gained at Education Week, I will share a recipe from Relief Society:

Creamy Cracked Wheat Cereal

1 cup uncooked cracked wheat
3 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup powdered milk
4 tablespoons sugar

Prepare cracked wheat by using a wheat grinder or a blender. Add dry milk to water, whisk and bring to a boil at medium high temperature. Add wheat, sugar, and salt; cover and reduce heat to simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until water is absorbed. Makes 3 cups cereal.

We have all heard Pres. Benson's statement many, many times, "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." I certainly hope you are being diligent in gathering a supply of the four basic food groups: Spaghettios, Jello pudding, applesauce and microwave popcorn.

The October 2008 Conference talk I want to share with you today is Elder Neil L. Andersen's entitled You Know Enough. "... we each have moments of spiritual power, moments of inspiration and revelation. We must sink them deep into the chambers of our souls. As we do, we prepare our spiritual home storage for moments of personal difficulty." (Ensign, November 2008 page 13) I liked that phrase describing our spiritual home storage. Just as our food storage is gathered one green bean at a time, so it is with our spiritual home storage...one verse of scripture at a time, one Family Home Evening lesson at a time, or one answered prayer at a time. We may not know all things, but we use what we do know to sustain us in times of doubt, discouragement, or persecution.

As we venture through trials, we wonder how we will ever make it through. In those times, we may feel our emotional or spiritual storage has been depleted...barren of nourishment. We find we've eaten all the bottled asparagus tips. There's only one remaining can of pineapple tidbits. Or maybe we are low on Bulgar (doesn't that sound appetizing?) That is precisely the time when we take inventory, dig in a little deeper and retrieve those experiences, feelings and testimony that have been stored up all our lives for just such a time.

I'm not sure how old I was when I had one of my first spiritual experiences. But I remember believing there were witches in the closet and I was also very afraid of dying in my sleep. (...don't know where that childhood phobia came from). One night I was so terrified that I literally couldn't allow myself to go to sleep. Mom and Dad had taught me to pray...so I did...and within a short time, the witches and the coffins were replaced with fairy princesses, or lollipops, or whatever was pleasant to dream about. I put that experience in storage and have added many more to it over the last 50 years. When other fears surfaced last year, I relied on my supply of testimony to see me through the crisis.

Isn't it interesting that our inventory of bottled peaches dwindles as they are consumed. But with our spiritual home storage, using it makes it grow. Maybe we don't know the location of Kolob or if we've been visited by one of the three Nephites...but we know enough.