Sometimes in life you get a pleasant surprise that makes you smile. Then there are times when you are so surprised that you gasp with joy. This was the case when I got the LDS Preparedness Manual and read it (Did we mention it is FREE).
The Disclaimer
First of all let me start off by saying again that SurvivalCache is free of politics, religion and of course it is free from advertisements. There are so many other sites that focus on those subjects that we decided to keep our site focused on Survival and Emergency Preparedness. We are not for or against any political party nor are we for or against any religion and for that reason we choose not to write on those topics. However, we are against advertisements and plan to stay that way.
When we do come across items that contain excellent information for our community, we don’t 
care who wrote it or where it came from. The bottom line for us @ SurvivalCache is “Could this help one of our readers survive or be prepared for an emergency?” The LDS Preparedness Manual is an overwhelming “YES”.
If you don’t feel like going any further in this book review, then just click on the following link and download the LDS Preparedness Manual for FREE (click Here), print it off and keep it somewhere in your house. Yes, you heard it here first, the LDS Preparedness Manual is FREE. Brought to you by the your friendly Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). No sign up required, no guys in suits showing up at your front door during a football game, nothing, zippy, nada….it is FREE. While this manual is not specifically endorsed by the LDS Church, it is put together and edited by members of the church using information they have gained from their own experiences, other publications and information that is available on the internet, which is probably why they are not charging for it.
Mormons
There are a lot of TV shows out there with guys who know a lot about Survival. Mykel Hawke’s 
show Man, Woman, Wild, then there is Les Stroud’s Survivorman, and of course Bear Grylls’ Man vs. Wild. All of these actors/survivalist on these shows know, that when it comes to Survival and Emergency Preparedness, the Mormons wrote the book….and they are still adding chapters to it. Myself, I am not Mormon. I grew up Catholic but I grew up in Southeast Iowa and I had a lot of friends who were LDS. My family often went across the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois which is a sacred place for the Mormon religion and we saw some of their preparedness first hand when we visited the local stores that sold preparedness type products. I have a lot of respect for their knowledge and dedication to being self reliant. I would almost guarantee that if a natural disaster hit Salt Lake City like Katrina hit New Orleans, the US Government would not even bother to send in FEMA. They would just say, “Dude, that city is full of Mormons, they are not going to need our help….they wrote the book on emegency preparedness.”
Overview
The LDS Preparedness Manual is a monster at 222 pages of information and they cover a lot of 
topics. This is not a Wilderness Survival Guide and I would never keep this in my Bug Out Bag (way too big), this is more of a preparedness bible of sorts and it is geared more towards “Bugging In” and being ready for anything. However, there is a small section on setting up a bug out bag which they called the “Deluxe 96 Hour Kit”. They give you two pages of ideas for your kit and they cover about everything you would need to survive for 96 hours or longer. The rest of this manual provides an excellent overview on food storage, emergency cooking, basic food lists, money, clothing, emergency shelter, water purification, emergency toilets, terrorism, money, quarantining for epidemics, fuel storage, (NBC) Nuclear Biological Chemical attacks, and much much more.
Pro’s
The first big pro is that this manual is free and it is awesome. At 222 pages, this manual is information overload. That is why I printed it off, put it in a binder and just read small sections at a time. I love the many checklists through out the manual, for example you could just take pages 124 to 127 with you to the grocery store and use it as a guide/checklist for all of the food that you would need to be prepared (except for the MREs listed on those pages as well).
Con’s
There are about 10 to 12 pages of religious text in this manual. Did it bother me? No. It might bother some people but the bottom line is that this is free from LDS church members and beggars can’t be choosers.
Download it, Print it, Read it, Store it
Click Here to Download the LDS Preparedness Manual
(Please pass it on to your friends & family that they can get this manual here for free)
If for some reason the above links to LDS Preparedness Manual do not work (which I have received a few emails saying that), please click here http://www.abysmal.com/LDS/Preparedness/Preparedness.pdf and see if this link works.
Visit Our New Survival Gear Store – Forge Survival Supply
Photos by:
More Good Foundation
American Red Cross
Leave us a Comment Below
My name is Scott and I run SurvivalCache.com along with the help of several great contributing authors.
You can read more on the
{ 72 comments… read them below or add one }
Just downloaded and scanned through it. Looks awesome!!! This one will take me some time. Once again…the Cache Rules!!!!
Thanks!
10 "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me.__11 I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior.__12 I have revealed and saved and proclaimed– I, and not some foreign god among you. You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "that I am God.__
Pretty hard to beat "free"… Good reading.
For some reason I glanced at the title and read, "The LSD preparedness manual". That caused some minor confusion.
Yes, prepare for your first LSD trip!!! That is pretty funny.
I did the same thing.
Downloaded – thanks for the heads up.
No problem
Gotta love the Mormon's. Always ready to survive just in case they get kicked out of town and have to move to — Salt Lake. Oh wait…already taken.
Kinda like "Sister Wives" .. lame show!
I am glad I am not the only one watching southernprepper1!
Big Fans!!
Page 32 talks about vitamins and to have a Daily multi and a C. The only one on the market made from true organic fruits and vegetables is one i found on this site a few months ago. http://www.rawsourceorganics.com
If I need to bug out quick and take a month or two of shelf stable foods with me until I get get to a growing season and plant some fruits and vegetables I am going to have a 2 or 3 month supply of vitamins to keep me generally healthy until my crops produce. I hadn't ever really thought about it until I read it here in one of your check lists a few months back. Good insight. Write more about this if possible
Thanks for sharing Kevin!
The 'Mormon Pantry' has always been a good idea. When I found out they keep a year's supply of food on hand I began to wonder why. Looking at their history, there were many times when they had to "bug out" RIGHT NOW! That level of preparation served them well so we started imitating it. I have downloaded the manual. Haven't read it yet but it should be good. Thank you for posting it.
This isn't a product of the LDS Church. It's written by a person who happens to be a member of the church, but the second page clearly states that this is not a publication that's officially sanctioned by the church. Just to be clear.
We tried to make it clear in the above article by saying – "While this manual is not specifically endorsed by the LDS Church, it is put together and edited by members of the church using information they have gained from their own experiences, other publications and information that is available on the internet"
It is clear. Guest just has an amazing grasp of the obvious and has to let everyone know about it.
Thanks for the tip, I've got it loaded on my Kindle.
Great idea to put it on the eReader! Thanks.
How did you get it on your Kindle. Did you buy and download??
Thanks
AZ BOB
Are you from Fort Madison?
Now that is funny. Very close, but I am not from FM.
in italy we say help yourself and god will help you! very good website and article! thanks
Thanks for the link. I downloaded it and skimmed a few pages. It looks good, and one can't beat the price
There are some minor pros and cons with going for a full year's stored supply of food. The main cons are simply the price, storage space, and awkwardness of trying to move it *all* if you feel you have to. On the pro side, if you have a year's supply of food tucked away then that will last you through an entire planting cycle, so that hopefully by the time the next harvest comes in things will be better. With less than a year's supply tucked away things could get dicey if you have to wait for an entire planting cycle for a decent resupply.
The LDS Church now tells Mormons to start buying extra food and building up slowly. Yes I'm Mormon. Unfortunately I don't have a year supply yet. I need to repent. Especially with food going up more, and all world currencies on the verge of collasping. (There all backed by Federal Reserve "Notes." WealthCycles has some free videos about it.) Plus John M. Browning inventor of the Colt 1911 was Mormon. Another gift. Of course they are not free.
The reading is GREAT. A good find. * about vitamins – pill or caplets are very easy to store and take, but your body does not absorb what is need in them. How many of us actually eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables every day. I drink a shake every day and depending on my intake a vary the mixture of the ingredients. This may be a good topic to go into more. I store about a months worth of food but the first two weeks is what we eat every day and the remaining is basic survival. So supplements are needed. Some of my ingredients are ALL-ONE (original formula) and Greens+ (Wild Berry).
Breaking up caplets & pills will help. Liquids are better, but don't seem to be as potent.
So I study nutrition for a living and you have a legitimate point when it comes to getting all your needs. There may be times where you'll only be getting your calories from one type of food and that can have serious repercussions. You can do pretty well for yourself with grain stores, dried/canned fruits and vegetables (though you may lose some of the nutritional/antioxidant content. Beans, Nuts, and to some extent even grains provide protein as long as you balance the amino acid contents, and Meat of course. Dairy is trickier but powdered milk in cans depending on the brand can provide a lot your needs. I would save the vitamin pills for a time of desperation where you only had one food source.
Great post and link. Every waterfall begins with one raindrop….Just like when one person begins to prepare for any event, it too will grow. So make your list, check it twice and stock it wide and deep!
Thank you for this info it looks great and will help alot since I’m a new prepper and trying to plan for 4 people.
I live in Salt Lake City, and yes FEMA would probably step aside for the LDS church. When the earthquake hit Haiti the LDS church had emergency supplies and food in the air before any other agency in the world. They have the canneries and food production facilities all over the place. I grew up here and it has always been the case to have 1 years worth of supplies saved up, plus they have a rotation program in print that I am still trying to get a hold of.
If you cant tell already I’m a history buff , anything I can get my hands on to read lol . From what I’ve read , the Mormons had a pretty organized system of re supply points for their settlers coming west in wagons . Apparently they have been doing this sort of thing for a loooooong time . Good for them !
As a Mormon, I appreciate the kind words posted here (no insults about religion), and I’m happy that people of any faith can benefit from the preparedness manual. Good work on the website and newsletters Joel. Thanks for what u do.
Great article. I just downloaded it to my computer (to print when I want to burn through that many pages and ink) and my Kindle. Fantastic stuff!
Greetings. My name is Christopher, and I am the author of the LDS Preparedness Manual. I just wanted to take a moment and say THANK YOU for sharing my work with all of your members. I really do hope it helps your members to become a little bit better prepared. The book is offered everyone free of charge as a PDF, I also offer it in printed form sold AT-COST from my printer, and in a week or so it should finally be on Amazon in KINDLE format as well I welcome comments about the book and it is ALWAYS under revision! Another major new release will be out this year with significant new material on communications as the next subject to be covered.!
Thank you, Christopher. Will there be a LDS Preparedness Manual website, or other means to keep up with revisions?
I would want to contribute by paying a decent price for the Kindle version. I might recommend a mechanism by which I and others might make additional contributions, which probably should be anonymous.
Please let me know.
Thank you Christopher. It is very refreshing to see that there truly are people out there that are not out to extract every penny they can out of people, but instead care about people enough to supply them with vital information such as this.
I’m not suggesting anything but ……….. As far as I know , the Mormon community stockpiles everything ……..except weapons ,….could be wrong but I dont think they do .
Ha! I'm Mormon…and I stockpile firearms (and ammo). It's not a Church teaching, but most of us do.
StorminMormon is right, at least the Idaho and Utah Mormons have more weapons than you could count. These aren't stockpiled by the Church, but rather by individual members. They range from grand dads shotgun, to AK's, deer rifles etc. Remember hunting is huge in these states, particularly in Idaho. So is disdain for intrusive big government, and a self reliant attitude. There is no connection to militias or white supremicist you hear about in northern Idaho. Most Mormons I know are good neighbors who take care of themselves, obey the law, and expect the rest of the country to do the same.
I could definitely hang out with some LDS folks sounds like. prepared AND they won't bogart the liquor!
Hahaha, good point
Like the others said, it depends on the individual Mormon. And like I said in another comment, John M. Browning invented the Colt 1911, I think the 50BMG and other weapons. And he was a 3rd generation Mormon. 3rd generation gunsmith too. Some of us see the need for weapons.
Oh most of us stock pile weapons! Or at least have them for Hunting, and self defense.
I laughed so hard when I read this! For most of us Mormons, guns are just part of our culture and most homes have at least one and usually around 10 or so. At least around the west.
Hmmm, tried both of those links and got error messages. Googled it, got a download, and got an error message when I tried to open it. "File is damaged and cannot be repaired". Any suggestions?
if the links do not work just put your cursor over the link right click and save as. it will just save the pdf file.
The LDS church does not encourage its members to stockpile weapons or ammo, just to stay out of debt and have adequate food storage: BUT many of the people I know (other Mormons) live by the creed "Buy it cheap and Stack it deep"
I love the LDS List, however, isn't the rule of thumb to only store what you actually eat? I'm confused.
Yes, store what you eat, but follow their guidelines on the quantities needed for proper nutrition. If you don't like one form of carbohydrate, replace it with another. When choosing vegetables, make sure you know which vitamins they contain. I turned my nose up at dehydrated peppers until I realized that they're a good source of something (I forget what). I'm not a fan of bananas, but they're about the only easy source of potassium and worth adding to my stock. If you're not sure why a particular food is on the list, do a quick online search of nutrients. You want to make sure that you have what will be needed for a balanced diet along with what you actually like to eat.
Also, make sure you have a variety of flavors. You might be a fan of Italian, but if you're spending weeks or months eating nothing but spaghetti, lasagna, and rigatoni you'll reach saturation point and never want to see another tomato product. If that's all you've stocked, you're stuck.
They also stress comfort foods and desserts. It might sound silly to stock up on chocolate pudding, lollipops, and Jell-O, but they'll be great morale-boosters when the SHTF.
You might want to double the fat. Russ Silver had a 7 year supply of food (like obedient ancient Israelites) and lost his job. He had to live off of his food storage for an extended time and became sick from it. Plus it was highly industralized, along with being low-fat Fat and Cholesterol are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov, M.D. Ph.D, Mr. Silver sells a DVD called Making Food Storage a Life Style HeritageLectures.com.
After downloading this great document it got me doing some research on the Mormons. This may sound ridiculous but the advice that their leaders have been giving them over the past few decades (and maybe more) has been amazingly insightful and accurate to preparing for world events as far as I can tell. I'm not saying that they are fortune tellers or anything, they are probably just highly informed and organized but most everything that I have seen so far has checked out and I wished I would have been hearing this a few years ago. For example their leaders were counseling them to get out of debt at least for four years before 2008 rolled around. (and not specifically stated but i got the hint they were saying don't go in debt for real estate) They have been counseling to have a years worth of food storage for a decade… maybe more. Not just in case of a total economic/social collapse but for individuals cases as well, like if you lost your job or were injured for an extended period of time you could subsidize off your food storage until you could get back on your feet (instead of leaching off the damn government) I'm not quite signing up with them yet but my extended bug out plan may be to get to salt lake city cause these guys seem a lot better equipped and organized than the government house of cards we are supposed to rely on.
Check this out. I just read this the other day where in 1998 the LDS people were instructed to avoid debt and get their houses in order. http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1998/10/to-…
"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."
We have been counseled to have a year supply of food for very long. It is mainly because of prophesy in the Doctrine & Covenants that their will be total famine for one year. Nothing will grow. We are supposed to be independent of all creatures beneath heaven. Debt- maybe for a modest car, house, education. Still need to get rid of it fast.
Thanks for the link. I've downloaded it onto my nook and will be reading!
This is awesome for someone like myself that needs to start from the ground up and doesn't really know where to start. Thanks for bringing this out to a place where someone else can find and download it
I'm very impressed. Most important aspect of this manual is how to get "there" from "here" in a year if you have nothing. Of course water is the big factor – point of observation is that about 20 #10 cans of dry goods (beans, macaroni, nonfat dry milk, rice, oats, dry potatoes, etc. require about 85 gallons of water so obviously water storage or a water source should be a consideration.
Thanks. Finally got this printed off. The information is very helpful. Intelligent, concise, and logical. Reading through it now, and making our plans to start the storage system up.
Our University of Alabama patented personal solar desalination product (U.S. Made) uses no electricity, can be taken anywhere and extracts pure water from any contaminated water source. It removes radiation, fluoride, salt, pesticides, bacteria, dirt and other contaminants from any water source.
http://freshwater.ecogreenenergies.com
Remove radiation from any water source
Our University of Alabama patented solar desalination product uses no electricity, has no filters to replace, can be taken anywhere and extracts pure water from any contaminated water source. It removes radiation, fluoride, salt, pesticides, bacteria, dirt and other contaminants from any water. It aids people to be prepared for disasters. Made tough in the U.S.A.
Please visit us: http://freshwater.ecogreenenergies.com
These units can also be placed together in arrays of literally any number of panels, as needed, to accommodate a desert farm or any remote area that needs water.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:
We have released a BRAND NEW VERSION of the LDS PREPAREDNESS MANUAL FOR 2012.
It is Now over 500 pages long !!
http://www.ldsavow.com
thanks for a review that isn't skewed
Might I suggest linking you in-text link for the word Mormon to http://www.mormon.org rather than the unreliable wikipedia? Thanks! As for Free…things are free because the church publishes them with the tithes of members…so thank a member 
just looked at the information…this isn't an official LDS publication…so it ISN"T paid for with tithing…just the kindness of someone else…wanted to correct my misinformation
Its interesting you mention a disaster hitting salt lake. Several years ago a tornado went through downtown salt lake. I remember the Today show talking with the Red Cross about estimated damages just 4 days afterwards and the person said they have no idea because everyone had started cleaning up so quickly that it was impossible to know what the true damage level had been.
wanted to download and all I get was a blank page
I would also try looking on the : lds.org site . Try there. I hope this may aid you.
just downloaded it looks cool cant wait to look through it .
I enjoyed this review and looking forward to download LDS Preparedness Manual. Thanks for providing all important pros and cons of this book. This type of review is really save time effectively.
Eco friendly product reviews featuring energy saving, sustainable and recycled products for environmentally
friendly lifestyles.
http://values.cc
This is also our new website for our earlier comment about the University of Alabama solar desalination product.
{ 6 trackbacks }