"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 day of Noah....

Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot happen here.  Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them.  Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that somehow will be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion."

	Ezra Taft Benson, Ensign, November 1980

"We encourage families to have on hand this year's supply; and we say it over and over and repeat over and over the scripture of the Lord where he says, "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?' How empty it is as they put their spirituality, so-called, into action and call him by his important names, but fail to do the things which he says."

	Spencer W. Kimball, April Conference, 1976

We have witnessed in recent weeks wide and fearsome swings in the markets of the world. The economy is a fragile thing. A stumble in the economy in Jakarta or Moscow can immediately affect the entire world. It can eventually reach down to each of us as individuals. There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.

We are carrying a message of self-reliance throughout the Church. Self-reliance cannot obtain when there is serious debt hanging over a household. One has neither independence nor freedom from bondage when he is obligated to others.

I urge you, brethren, to look to the condition of your finances. I urge you to be modest in your expenditures; discipline yourselves in your purchases to avoid debt to the extent possible. Pay off debt as quickly as you can, and free yourselves from bondage.

    This is a part of the temporal gospel in which we believe. May the Lord bless you, my beloved brethren, to set your houses in order. If you have paid your debts, if you have a reserve, even though it be small, then should storms howl about your head, you will have shelter for your wives and children and peace in your hearts. That's all I have to say about it, but I wish to say it with all the emphasis of which I am capable.

President Gordon B. Hinckley,  October General Conference, 1998