Chapter 13 Temporal Self-Reliance

Teachings of Presidents of the Church
Gordon B. Hinckley Manual
Lesson 13
Peace and Contentment through Temporal Self-Reliance

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Click here for a link to the lesson


Quotes in Red are from the manual

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Section 1

As we work with integrity, our lives are blessed forever.

How has work been a blessing in your life? 

What have you learned through hard work? 

How can parents help their children learn to work?

I believe in the gospel of work. There is no substitute under the heavens for productive labor. It is the process by which dreams become realities. It is the bprocess by which idle visions become dynamic achievements.⁴

A little play and a little loafing are good. But it is work that spells the difference in the life of a man or woman. It is work that provides the food we eat, the clothing we wear, the homes in which we live. We cannot deny the need for work with skilled hands and educated minds if we are to grow and prosper individually and collectively.⁵

I have discovered that life is not a series of great heroic acts. Life at its best is a matter of consistent goodness and decency, doing without fanfare that which needed to be done when it needed to be done. I have observed that it is not the geniuses that make the difference in this world. I have observed that the work of the world is done largely by men and women of ordinary talent who have worked in an extraordinary manner.⁶

Children need to work with their parents—to wash dishes with them, to mop floors with them, to mow lawns, to prune trees and shrubbery, to paint and fix up and clean up and do a hundred other things where they will learn that labor is the price of cleanliness and progress and prosperity.⁷

The great genius of this Church is work. Everybody works. You do not grow unless you work. Faith, testimony of the truth, is just like the muscle of my arm. If you use it, it grows strong. If you put it in a sling, it grows weak and flabby. We put people to work. We expect great things of them, and the marvelous and wonderful thing is they come through. They produce.⁸

Nothing happens in this Church unless you work. It is like a wheelbarrow. It doesn’t move until you get ahold of the two handles and push. Hard work moves the work of the Lord forward, and if you have learned to work with real integrity it will bless your lives forever. I mean that with all my heart. It will bless your lives forever.

Doct and Cov 82:3  For of him unto whom much is given much is required; and he who sins against the greater light shall receive the greater condemnation.

Work is basic to all we do. God’s first direction to Adam in the Garden of Eden as recorded in scripture was to dress the garden and take care of it. After the fall of Adam, God cursed the earth for Adam’s sake saying, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.” (Gen. 3:19.) Today, many have forgotten the value of work. Some falsely believe that the highest goal in life is to achieve a condition in which one no longer needs to work. (Guiding Principles of personal and family welfare.  Thomas S. Monson.  Sept 1986).  

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Section 2

We have a responsibility to help others lift themselves and become self-reliant.

What are our responsibilities toward those who have temporal needs? 

How can we help others become self-reliant? 

How has your life been influenced by service you have given and received?

There is an old saying that if you give a man a fish, he will have a meal for a day. But if you teach him how to fish, he will eat for the remainder of his life. …

May the Lord grant us vision and understanding to do those things which will help our members not only spiritually but also temporally. We have resting upon us a very serious obligation. President Joseph F. Smith said … that a religion which will not help a man in this life will not likely do much for him in the life to come (see “The Truth about Mormonism,” Out West magazine, Sept. 1905, 242).

The individual, as we teach, ought to do for himself all that he can. When he has exhausted his resources, he ought to turn to his family to assist him. When the family can’t do it, the Church takes over. And when the Church takes over, our great desire is to first take care of his immediate needs and then to help him for so long as he needs to be helped, but in that process to assist him in training, in securing employment, in finding some way of getting on his feet again. That’s the whole objective of [the Church’s] great welfare program.¹¹

Those who have participated as the recipients of this program have been spared “the curse of idleness and the evils of the dole.” Their dignity and self-respect have been preserved. And those myriads of men and women who have not been direct recipients, but who have participated in the growing and processing of food and in scores of associated undertakings, bear testimony of the joy to be found in unselfish service to others.

The Spirit of the Lord guides this work. This welfare activity is secular activity, expressing itself in terms of rice and beans, of blankets and tents, of clothing and medicine, of employment and education for better employment. But this so-called secular work is but an outward expression of an inward spirit—the Spirit of the Lord, of whom it was said, He “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).¹³

Unfortunately, there has been fostered in the minds of some an expectation that when we experience hard times, when we have been unwise and extravagant with our resources and have lived beyond our means, we should look to either the Church or government to bail us out. Forgotten by some of our members is an underlying principle of the Church welfare plan that “no true Latter-day Saint will, while physically able, voluntarily shift from himself the burden of his own support” (Marion G. Romney, in Conference Report, Oct. 1973, p. 106). (quoted by Ezra Taft Benson.  "Prepare for the Days of Tribulation".  Oct 1980)

At October general conference during the same year (1936), President Heber J. Grant read a statement from the First Presidency that explained the principles upon which the Church’s welfare efforts were based. Included were these familiar words: “Our primary purpose was to set up, insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” (In Conference Report, Oct. 1936, p. 3.) (Quoted by Thomas S. Monson. "Guiding Principles of Personal and Family Welfare".  Sept 1986.  Ensign.)

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Section 3

Prophets have encouraged us to prepare ourselves spiritually and temporally for catastrophes to come.

What preparations did President Hinckley counsel us to make for times of need? 

When have you seen the importance of preparing for times of need? 

What are some small, gradual things we can do to prepare ourselves?

The Lord has said, “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).

We can so live that we can call upon the Lord for His protection and guidance. This is a first priority. We cannot expect His help if we are unwilling to keep His commandments. We in this Church have evidence enough of the penalties of disobedience in the examples of both the Jaredite and the Nephite nations. Each went from glory to utter destruction because of wickedness.

We know, of course, that the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust 

We have a great welfare program with facilities for such things as grain storage in various areas. It is important that we do this. But the best place to have some food set aside is within our homes, together with a little money in savings. The best welfare program is our own welfare program. Five or six cans of wheat in the home are better than a bushel in the welfare granary. …

We can begin ever so modestly. We can begin with a one week’s food supply and gradually build it to a month, and then to three months. I am speaking now of food to cover basic needs. As all of you recognize, this counsel is not new. But I fear that so many feel that a long-term food supply is so far beyond their reach that they make no effort at all.

Begin in a small way … and gradually build toward a reasonable objective. Save a little money regularly, and you will be surprised how it accumulates.¹⁶

Some have difficulty differentiating between a goal and a plan until they learn that a goal is a destination or an end, while a plan is the route by which you get there...Goal setting is essentially beginning with the end in mind. And planning is devising a way to get to that end. A key to happiness lies in understanding what destinations truly matter—and then spending our time, effort, and attention on the things that constitute a sure way to arrive there...Wise goal setting includes the understanding that short-term goals are only effective if they lead to clearly understood longer-term goals. ("Return and Receive".  M. Russell Ballard.  April 2017)

All is Safely Gathered in pamphlet  (food storage)  

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing” (D&C 109:8).

The revelation to store food may be as essential to our temporal salvation today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah...Those who are prepared now have the continuing blessings of early obedience, and they are ready. Noah built his ark before the flood came, and he and his family survived. Those who waited to act until after the flood began were too late. (Prepare Ye.  Ezra Taft Benson. Jan 1974.)
 

President Spencer W. Kimball admonished us:  “In reviewing the Lord’s counsel to us on the importance of preparedness, I am impressed with the plainness of the message. The Savior made it clear that we cannot place sufficient oil in our preparedness lamps by simply avoiding evil. We must also be anxiously engaged in a positive program of preparation.”  He also said: “The Lord will not translate one’s good hopes and desires and intentions into works. Each of us must do that for himself” (The Miracle of Forgiveness, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969, p. 8).  (Quoted in the talk "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear".  L. Tom Perry.  Oct 1995 

If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.  Doct and Cov 38:30


As long as I can remember, we have been taught to prepare for the future and to obtain a year’s supply of necessities. I would guess that the years of plenty have almost universally caused us to set aside this counsel. I believe the time to disregard this counsel is over. With events in the world today, it must be considered with all seriousness. ("If ye are prepared ye shall not fear".  L. Tom Perry.  Oct 1995 

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 they 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.  "Prepare for the Days of Tribulation".  Oct 1980)

Elder Harold B. Lee counseled, “Perhaps if we think not in terms of a year’s supply of what we ordinarily would use, and think more in terms of what it would take to keep us alive in case we didn’t have anything else to eat, that last would be very easy to put in storage for a year … just enough to keep us alive if we didn’t have anything else to eat. We wouldn’t get fat on it, but we would live; and if you think in terms of that kind of annual storage rather than a whole year’s supply of everything that you are accustomed to eat which, in most cases, is utterly impossible for the average family, I think we will come nearer to what President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., advised us way back in 1937.” (In Welfare Conference, 1 October 1966.) (quoted by (Ezra Taft Benson.  "Prepare for the Days of Tribulation".  Oct 1980)

TTT...Things Take Time.  (Paraphrased from a BYU talk ... https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/e-jeffrey-hill_money-matters-living-joyfully-within-your-means/)

There was an entire extra session of General Conference than we have today.  It was called the "Welfare Session".  This happened twice a year (in Oct and April Conference).  The last one was in Oct 1982.

A beautiful video about using food storage due to loss of job.  https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-0001-family-home-storage-meet-jean?lang=eng&_r=1

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Section 4

We enjoy independence and freedom as we avoid debt to the extent possible and set aside money for times of need.

What is President Hinckley’s counsel about debt and thrift?

Why is it important to be disciplined in the way we spend money? 

How can debt affect us temporally and spiritually? 

How can parents teach their children to use money wisely?

President J. Reuben Clark Jr., in the priesthood meeting of the conference in 1938, [said]: “Once in debt, interest is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it; it yields neither to entreaties, demands, or orders; and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1938, 103).

I recognize that it may be necessary to borrow to get a home, of course. But let us buy a home that we can afford and thus ease the payments which will constantly hang over our heads without mercy or respite. …

Since the beginnings of the Church, the Lord has spoken on this matter of debt. To Martin Harris through revelation He said: “Pay the debt thou hast contracted with the printer. Release thyself from bondage” (D&C 19:35).

President Heber J. Grant spoke repeatedly on this matter. … He said: “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham [1941], 111).

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.

In managing the affairs of the Church, we have tried to set an example. We have, as a matter of policy, stringently followed the practice of setting aside each year a percentage of the income of the Church against a possible day of need.

I am grateful to be able to say that the Church in all its operations, in all its undertakings, in all of its departments, is able to function without borrowed money. If we cannot get along, we will curtail our programs. We will shrink expenditures to fit the income. We will not borrow. …

What a wonderful feeling it is to be free of debt, to have a little money against a day of emergency put away where it can be retrieved when necessary. …

I urge you … 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.

"...we go into debt to buy things we can’t afford—and things we do not really need. Whenever we do this, we become poor temporally and spiritually. We give away some of our precious, priceless agency and put ourselves in self-imposed servitude. Money we could have used to care for ourselves and others must now be used to pay our debts. What remains is often only enough to meet our most basic physical needs. Living at the subsistence level, we become depressed, our self-worth is affected, and our relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and the Lord are weakened. We do not have the time, energy, or interest to seek spiritual things."  (Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually.  Robert D. Hales.  April 2009)

 "In seeking to overcome debt and addictive behaviors, we should remember that addiction is the craving of the natural man, and it can never be satisfied. It is an insatiable appetite. When we are addicted, we seek those worldly possessions or physical pleasures that seem to entice us. But as children of God, our deepest hunger and what we should be seeking is what the Lord alone can provide—His love, His sense of worth, His security, His confidence, His hope in the future, and assurance of His love, which brings us eternal joy."  (Becoming Provident Providers Temporally and Spiritually.  Robert D. Hales.  April 2009)

A well-managed family does not pay interest—it earns it. (If Ye are Prepared Ye Shall not Fear.  L. Tom Perry. Oct 1995)

Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had a supply of food and clothing and were debt-free. Today we find that many have followed this counsel in reverse: they have a supply of debt and are food-free. (Are We Prepared?  Thomas S. Monson.  Sept 2014.  Ensign)

President Heber J. Grant spoke repeatedly on this matter from this pulpit. He said: “If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means. And if there is any one thing that is grinding and discouraging and disheartening, it is to have debts and obligations that one cannot meet” (Gospel Standards, comp. G. Homer Durham [1941], 111). (Quoted by President Gordon B. Hinckley in "To the Boys and to the Men".  Oct 1998.  

All too often a family’s spending is governed more by their yearning than by their earning.  (Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts.  April 2004.  Joseph B. Wirthlin.)  

Remember this: debt is a form of bondage. It is a financial termite. When we make purchases on credit, they give us only an illusion of prosperity. We think we own things, but the reality is, our things own us.  (Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts.  April 2004.  Joseph B. Wirthlin.)  


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This does not really fit one of the sections...but was an excellent talk about spiritual Self-Reliance.  He talks about conversion and testimony and comparing the two.  For example, you can have a testimony and not be fully converted to the Lord.  Converted unto the Lord.  David A. Bednar.  Oct 2012