My husband thinks the world is going to end soon. Maybe even beginning this month. And he’s not the only one.
Recently the Salt Lake Tribune published a piece about an unusually high number of Mormons “stocking up” this month amid fears that Doomsday is nigh. For months, member-run forums like AVOW (Another Voice of Warning) and LDS Freedom Forum have been buzzing with tips on preparing for disaster and predictions of when it will all start to go down.
The Start of Our Prepping
For my husband, it all started a few years ago, when he went on a camping trip to Zion National Park. When he got back, his mood was more somber than I would have expected. I couldn’t wait to hear about his experience, but all he wanted to talk about was a book he’d come across (suggested by another family member) called “Visions of Glory.” The book is an account by a Church member (who some believe to be Thomas G. Harrison of Salt Lake City) who claims to have seen visions of events that will happen in the near future involving economic collapse, natural disasters, and the invasion of America by foreign troops. The journalist in me rolled her eyes. Isn’t this the same kind of thing people were saying on New Year’s Eve in 1999?
Since then, he’s read other books by people who say they have seen similar if not identical visions of the same events, usually as part of a near-death experience. Almost all of them point to a timeline in the very near future.
As compelling as these accounts are to people who know they are living in the last days, we both realized it was possible that 1) the author was lying, 2) the author had been deceived or 3) the author had misinterpreted their experience. Our doubts aside, reading these predictions caused us to consider how well spiritually and temporally prepared we were for such times if we ever encountered them. We also reflected on the counsel we had received from our Church leaders over the years to store food, water and supplies.
And so we started prepping, modestly at first. Last weekend, during a not-so-uncommon trip to Cabela’s, my husband ran into an old friend from his mission and they started catching up. After seeing the items we were carrying (propane and ammo), he asked, “Are you guys going camping or something?” I laughed as my husband sheepishly explained that were just stocking up on some “essentials.” “Oh, are you guys preppers?,” his friend asked.
While I hadn’t ever thought of us as “preppers,” he made a good point. We were definitely doing something that most people don’t do: buying large quantities of propane.
The Blood Moon Tetrad
Die-hard preppers and Orthodox Jews believe a major sign that Doomsday is coming is the blood moon tetrad and the shmitah, both of which occur in September 2015. Emergency Essentials recently produced a short video that explains these astronomical and religious events in layman’s terms:
(Note: The video above has several inconsistent dates presented two of which are: the Western Hemisphere was opened in 1492, not 1493, and the Jewish State was established on May 14, 1948, not in 1949.)
Provident Living
As a result of the many books and forum posts my husband has read — and in turn shared with me — we are learning to live providently. In a 2009 General Conference address, Elder Robert D. Hales said,
All of us are responsible to provide for ourselves and our families in both temporal and spiritual ways. To provide providently, we must practice the principles of provident living: joyfully living within our means, being content with what we have, avoiding excessive debt, and diligently saving and preparing for rainy-day emergencies.
My husband thinks the world is going to end, but we both know “soon” might not be in our lifetime. Still, I feel peace knowing we have extra food, water, and supplies, even if we never have to use them to survive the end times.
Although I am definitely more “on the fence” than my husband is about these visions, the fact that they have inspired us to follow the counsel of our leaders does make me wonder if there may be some truth to them.
