How to Get the Most Out of the LDS Preparedness Manual

Thinking about my childhood brings back memories of homemade bread and bottled fruit, lined up neatly on the countertop. My mom would go into the backyard to collect eggs and check on our chickens, named Donny, Marie, Laverne, and Shirley.

My mom made sure we were ready for disasters. We had first aid kits, water and flashlights stashed everywhere. Being raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) does give you the chance to be raised to think of preparedness — it’s taught to us from the time we’re little kids.

Not everyone is lucky enough to be raised around yummy bread and famously named chickens. There are many resources available to help you get prepared. If you are looking for a manual that has the information you are needing to help you prep, this is it. The LDS Preparedness Manual is what you are looking for. And the best news of all, it is FREE! With 509 pages of information, it seems to cover every topic you could imagine.

Edited by Christopher Parrett, the contents of this booklet cover a wide range of emergency preparedness and survival topics.

Another tool I like to use is the LDS Food Storage Calculator, which you can learn how to use here. The calculator is wonderful to use as a starting point with knowing how much and what kind of food you should store given the size of your family and your tastes and preferences. It’s great on its own, or as a supplement to the LDS Preparedness Manual!

The LDS Preparedness Manual

This manual was compiled by a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (LDS), and is comprised of hundreds of articles written by some of the best-known prepping experts on the internet. It’s more of an anthology than one, long narrative, so you can pick and choose which articles and even which authors you prefer.

Those of the LDS church have a long history of being prepared. Even now, they are encouraged by their church leaders to be as self-reliant as possible. Because this book was compiled by a member of the LDS faith, you will find some religious references about family, community, and being ready for any emergency. After reading and seeing how much is packed into this manual, an atheist would consider it a religious prepping experience!

Get ready for an in-depth experience, though. With over 500 pages, you’ll want to find a comfy spot to sit and a nice, cold drink at hand! If you, like me, prefer hard copies of manuals like this one, the easiest way to get this printed is to download it, and then send it as an attachment to a store with a copying service, such as Office Depot. For a few dollars more, they may be able to give it a spiral binding, which will make it even easier to read and make notes.

How is the LDS Preparedness Manual organized?

When you’re putting together a manual with this many pages, you want it to be highly organized so the reader can quickly find what he or she is looking for.

The manual’s first section is titled, “Expert Counsel” and includes a handful of articles that address mindset and some general principles of preparedness. You’ll find one of Survival Mom’s classic articles included in this section, “Normalcy Bias: It’s All in Your Head“.

Next, the manual really gets into the meat of things — namely, food storage. In this large section, you’ll see a variety of different approaches to food storage and then specific sections on Grains & Legumes, Sugar, Milk Fats & Oils, Cooking Essentials, Processing & Preservation, Sprouting, and then instructions for safely storing your emergency food supply.

The third section of the LDS manual is titled, “Every Needful Thing”. This is a broad category that guides you through information about 72 hour kits, evacuation planning, communications in an emergency, financial prepping, medical issues, defense, shelter, and more. Bug out bags, emergency shelters and even first-person reports from Hurricane Katrina — it’s all here!

The remaining pages include articles by other experts and include preparing for a terrorist attack, the possibility of a nuclear event, and other, more difficult topics. Sometimes as we prep, we encounter potentially sticky situations, and the editor of this book includes articles that address them:

• Fears of a Prepper
• On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs
• The Overnighters: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You?
• Why Prepare when I can take it from the Mormons?
• The Thin Blue Line
• Society’s Five Stages of Economic Collapse

Even though the book was published in 2012, it has a handy section on planning for a pandemic, including an excellent article by Dr. Cynthia Koelker, “Medical Quarantine: Protecting Your Family from Infection”.

As you browse through the Table of Contents and you’ve been just a casual reader of survival and prepper websites, you’ll see a number of familiar names: Survival Mom, James Rawles, Selco, Jackie Clay, and Ferfal. All in all, it’s quite a round-up of Who’s Who in the Prepper World, circa 2012.

My Top 7 Favorite Finds

1. I love the many checklists throughout the manual. You could take pages 124 to 127 with you to the grocery store and use it as a guide/checklist. So, this is a time saver to assist with your emergency prepper food storage.
2. The LDS Preparedness Manual is a great place to start for beginners. It is a simple and straightforward approach to prepping. If you are not a beginner, it will be a reference that you will turn to over and over again.
3. Page 57! It is easy to read the one-year food supply guide. It has the specifics of what kind and amount of food needed per person for a year. Also, check out the LDS Food Storage Calculator.
4. Information about the Home Storage Center Prices and Locations. Not familiar with the Home Storage Center? These centers are owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they are open to the public. Anyone can buy discounted food for their storage. Every month they have 2 of their many food items on sale. (You must try the potato pearls) This site will tell you where to find the location closest to you and find out what is on sale.
5. The General Preparedness Survey on p. 39 will measure where your preparedness level is. Use this manual to take you where you are currently, to where you want to be.
6. There are tables, checklists, and examples that are easy to understand and well organized. Just find the checklist that you want to focus on and print.
7. This manual covers just about every topic you will need in about every circumstance. Look up what you need by topic. You will be surprised at the wealth of information and things you can prepare for.

The LDS Preparedness Manual is free

Some readers have printed it out and put it in a 3-ring binder with tabs to divide the topics. They have found it easy to get to the wanted topics fast, along with adding paper for notes. The book is also available at the cost to print and ship, and you’ll find that information in the first few pages of the book. You can also find it on Amazon or just download it at this link and have it printed at an office supply store.

As emergency preparedness resources go, this one is an excellent overview — a real gold mine no matter how new or how experienced you are.