Book Review: LDS Preparedness Manual

Sometimes in life you get a pleasant little surprise that makes you smile.  Then there are times when you are so surprised that you are overwhelmed and you gasp with joy.  This was the case when I got the LDS Preparedness Manual and read it.

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 against any political party nor are we against any religion or race and 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)

Photos by:
More Good Foundation
American Red Cross

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