Some quotes from prophets and apostles #11

“Noah heeded God’s command to build an ark...that they might be saved from the floodwaters…Yet there was no evidence of rain and flood…His actions were considered irrational…The sun was shining and life moved forward as usual. But time ran out…The floods came, the disobedient were drowned… When God speaks and we obey, we will always be right” Thomas S. Monson,  Ensign 10-07

“No one knows the time of His coming, but the faithful are taught to study the signs of it and be prepared for it…We need to make both temporal and spiritual preparation for the events prophesied at the time of the Second Coming” Oct. 2007 VT Message in Ensign, Dallin H. Oaks

Speaking for the first Presidency, President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. exhorted the Saints to live within their means: "Let us avoid debt as we would avoid a plague...Let every head of every household see to it that he has on hand enough food and clothing, and, where possible, fuel also, for at least a year ahead...Let every head of household aim to own his own home, free from mortgage. Let us again clothe ourselves with these proved and sterling virtues—honesty, truthfulness, chastity, sobriety, temperance, industry, and thrift; let us discard all covetousness and greed." (President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., April 1937 General Conference)

"Perhaps if we think not in terms of a year’s supply of what we ordinarily would use, and think more in terms of what it would take to keep us alive in case we didn’t have anything else to eat, that last would be very easy to put in storage for a year...just enough to keep us alive if we didn’t have anything else to eat. We wouldn’t get fat on it, but would live; and if you think in terms of that kind of annual storage rather than a whole year’s supply of everything that you are accustomed to eat which, in most cases, is utterly impossible for the average family, I think we will come nearer to what President Clark. advised us way back in 1937." (President Harold B. Lee: Welfare conference address, October 1, 1966)

"How on the face of the earth could a man enjoy his religion when he had been told by the Lord how to prepare for a day of famine, when, instead of doing, so, he had fooled away that which would have sustained him and his family." Elder George A. Smith (JD 12:142)