DeborahInCalif

Yes, sadder still is when my Bishop informed me when I was struggling to find work that there were degreed members of the church flipping burgers at fast food joints because there just isn't work out there. Sadly too, while I live in the breadbasket of the world, we have a lot of Ward members out of work, unable to store food and kinda takes advantage of a generous Bishop when they get the chance. He's far too kind in my book, while he does require us to store food, he's had to send RS to certain members' homes only to find they are lying about needing food and using the Bishop's storehouse to hoard food so that they don't have to buy it.

I haven't seen a decline in talk about food storage or in provident living in my Ward. Our Relief Society even set up a pantry in the Relief Society closet with about a month's supply of food for those new members or anyone caught without food for when they've had an emergency, just moved in or is waiting for the storehouse to open and fill their food order from the Bishop. When you meet with the Bishop he asks about your food storage as does the Relief Society President, our Visiting Teacher and even my Home Teacher. It may be because I live in an agricultural city where the unemployment is high especially because of the drought, the emphasis has been to store up food, money and hunker down and get busy getting re-educated and skilled to work in a different career. Heavy emphasis in self-reliance including paying tithing and fast offerings is not lost in my Ward and in fact it wasn't 6 mos ago during our 5th Sunday combined Relief Society/Priesthood meeting this was addressed.