Weekly Assignment and Food Storage Ideas (Week of September 4th)

Hi Carson Ward Family, Family, and Friends,

Congratulations to Angelita Vivo! She won our FREE Monthly Giveway Drawing last week. She won a Sycehelle Water Filtration Pump.

Quote:

"By faith Noah, being warned moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, ...." (Hebrews 11:7)

"...faith without works is dead." (James 2: 20)

Once again we are reminded of the importance of being prepared with the recent events on the East Coast with Hurricane Irene and the earthquake. A disaster can come to anyone at any time! It amazes me, especially in the areas that are prone to hurricanes and tornadoes, that they do not prepared ahead of time. Each time they wait until the last minute, knowing this season is coming, to purchase supplies to protect their home and food, water and emergency supplies, many times finding the shelves very low on supplies and sometimes empty. Why not prepare ahead of time for the things you know you might have to face? In our area, we never know when an earthquake might happen, or the magnitude of it, why not be prepared now? Later will be too late!

Several years ago, a hurricane type force storm hit our south bay coast for several days. We were personally affected by the storm. It knocked down power lines, which knocked out the electricity, there was flooding in some areas, making it difficult, if not impossible to get through. Stores, gas stations, banks, businesses, and schools had to close in our area due to no electricity. Many power lines were down, making it unsafe to pass by and be on the road. In areas, if you could get to them, where stores were open, supplies were limited or not available. For over a week we had no electricity and were advised not to drink the tap water unless we boiled it, stores and banks were closed, schools were closed, and we were advised to stay home.

Thank goodness we had listened to our Church leaders and had prepared for times such as this. We had food and water, we had lanterns and candles, we had an electricity stove which meant we could not cook so we had an alternate way to cook, and we had a family emergency plan. What could have been a very difficult and stressful time with 6 children, we were able to meet the challenge. The children thought it was fun camping out in the front room, reading, singing and playing games by lanterns or candle light, and cooking with our emergency cooking equipment. Luckily, we could still use our toilet, but what if we could not, that would have been a situation we found out we were not prepared for.

How will you and your family cope if there is a disaster in our area? How prepared are you with food, water and emergency supplies? This is our goal, to have our Ward members prepared. This blog is to help you do so! Use it and "prepare every needful thing" (D&C 109:8) so you will be able to take care of you and your family.

Let us be like Noah, "being warned moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." Let us just not rely on our faith, but work towards being prepared!

Temporal Assignments:

Now that we have completed our Family Emergency Medical Supplies we are going to again work on getting our Individual 72 Hour Food Kits for each family member together. Why are we doing this again? We want every family member to have one of these 72 Hour Backpack Kits for each family member. The 72 Hour Backpack not only involves food and snacks, but also personal hygiene items, a stressor kit, clothing, and other items. It has been a year since we originally put these together, and many of us need to rotate the food/snack/water items. We will also be adding items to our 3 Month/Year Food Supply.

72 Hour Individual Emergency Food Kit (This week add the following):

Important: Remember, if you purchase any of these food items from the 99 Cent Store, Dollar Tree or any discount store, even your regular grocery store, check the expiration dates. You want them to be good for at least a year.

Add the following (3 of each item for each family member. Example: if you have 4 people in your family, you need to purchase 12 of each item. Since they come 6 to a box, you will need 2 boxes of each for a family of 4):

1) Granola bars
2) Juice boxes

You will find these food items are high in calories, you will need this since food is limited.

Place these items in a large zip lock plastic bag for each family member and put it in a backpack for each family member. We will be adding items each week until completed. If you want to see a list of the entire food items, see the blog posting dated September 12th (last year), or the 72 Hour Emergency Kit on the right side under Postings. Scroll down until you get to the first menu, the same menu each day. Do not buy an expensive backpack but make sure the straps are strong enough to hold weight. Check out the discount stores like the Salvation Army, Good Will or Carson Discount Center on Sepulveda & Avalon, wash and dry them before use.

3 Month/Year Food Supply:

This week, add 5-10 cans of soup. Costco or Sams Club may have good prices, unless you can get them on sale at a regular grocery store this week. You can eat the soup even if not able to heat up.

Food Storage Ideas:

If you are using your freeze dried or dehydrated foods, make sure you hydrate them first before cooking. It is usually the same amount of water as the food you are using, wait about 5 minutes, then cook. In an emergency situation and there is no way to cook, you can eat it cold.

Printing these postings: Many of you like to print these posting and ideas. and keep them in a notebook for future references. To print, cut and paste to Microsoft or another type of word document and then print.

Remember: Post your name and comment below to have your name entered into our FREE Monthly Giveaway Drawing to held the last Sunday in September.