President Nelson, April 2019 GC, “Time is running out.” (speaking of spiritual preparedness)

It's so critical for us to be spiritually in tune. If we are, we will also want to be prepared in all things.

Temporal Preparation

Financial - Can one financial setback wipe you out?  We had a family in our ward with one car. It broke down, they didn’t have $750 to fix it, he lost his job. Home went into foreclosure. How was this resolved?

Recommendation: Have enough money set aside to cover at least three months of bills. Note that this will be less than three months of what you normally spend. Don’t stop at three months, because you really want to be able to cover your expenses forsix months or longer.

What to save for:

• Mortgage

• Car payment

• Utilities

• Cell phone service

• Medical emergency

• Vehicle emergency

What you don’t need to include: 

• Taxes

• Tithing

• Putting $$ into savings

• Buying new clothing

• Food shopping

• Household cleaning & sanitation products

• Vacations

• Credit Card debt

• Subscriptions for cable channels/streaming services, car wash, etc.

P.A.C.E.

Our US Special Forces were trained to be prepared in four levels: Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency(PACE). Primary is what we would normally use, Alternate is a great back-up for us when the Primary is not available, Contingency is a secondary back-up plan and Emergency is when P, A and C are not available. To explain this, here are some examples:

Transportation

Primary – car or truck

Alternate – motorbike, ATV, side-by-side, etc.

Contingency – bicycle, skateboard, roller skates, other wheels

Emergency – foot (need good shoes & boots for all weather conditions in our area)

Food

P – grocery store

A – pantry and storage room

C – garden

E – hunting and fishing

Weaponry for Self Defense (military thinking)

P – rife for long range defense

A – side arm for closer range

C – shotgun for really close

E – knife for hand-to-hand

Fire Starting

P – propane/butane torch or lighter

A – matches

C – flint and steel

E – rubbing sticks together

This got me thinking about the various items on our personal prep lists and how we could apply PACE to them; items such as shelter, cooking, lighting, water, heating, medical, sanitation (including toilets), etc. I’m going to pick a few and run them through the PACE model. Since this is simply my take on this, and not the military, feel free to send me your suggestions to improve the list.

Shelter

P – home

A – trailer, motorhome

C – tent*

E – tarp and rope

* In this example, a good tent could be the Alternate for a lot of people and the Emergency could be an ax/hatchet/saw for cutting off tree branches to form a lean-to.

Water

P – faucet inside our home

A – water barrels

C – water purification tools for water collected from streams, lakes, rain

E – boil water collected from ‘C’ when you don’t have purification tools. Before and after boiling, ‘filter’ the water through a dense piece of cloth to remove larger particles.

Cooking

P – home stove top and ovens

A – propane grills and stoves

C – wood burning stoves and solar ovens

E – cooking over an open fire

Lighting

P – electricity

A – batteries*

C – solar, propane

E – fire

* Some might suggest that A & C should be reversed or even put in the same category. That’s not an issue in my mind. The key is to have multiple levels of preparedness.

Feel free to continue this exercise with other preparedness categories.

Let’s run one category through the PACE model and see how it works:

Shelter

P – Keep your home in good working order and clean. Pay mortgage and insurance on time to keep it securely in your name.

A – Since most people can’t run out and purchase a motorhome, most people will be jumping straight to C, atent. For those that have a motorhome, keep the propane and water tanks full. Learn how to perform most repairs to keep it functioning.

C – Tent. If you don’t have a tent, study out various styles and sizes with the understanding that you would want space for sleeping as well as room for gear. In an emergency, the tent will give you immediate shelter from the elements, as well as privacy, if you need to evacuate your home.

E – Tarp or lean-to. Get 100 ft coils of both rope (1/2 in) and paracord. Tarps can be used for collecting water as well as for shelter. Choose a size and add it to your preps. Best if the tarp has eyelets. Having metal stakes would also help and could be used to help secure your tarp in windy weather. Another idea is to build a lean-to from salvaged building materials, branches and pine boughs.

Purchase a simple saw, ax or hatchet if you don’t already have them. I would suggest at least a branch saw and a hatchet. Keep the hatchet sharpened, which means you will want to have a sharpening tool (not very expensive).

As you can see, with regards to Shelter, everyone can work towards being PACE prepared in short order. Let’s do it!