This article was originally posted on LDS.net. Below is an excerpt.
For my husband, it all started a few years ago, when he went on a camping trip to Zion National Park. When he got back, his mood was more somber than I would have expected. I couldn’t wait to hear about his experience, but all he wanted to talk about was a book he’d come across (suggested by another family member) called “Visions of Glory.” The book is an account by a Church member (who some believe to be Thomas G. Harrison of Salt Lake City) who claims to have seen visions of events that will happen in the near future involving economic collapse, natural disasters, and the invasion of America by foreign troops. The journalist in me rolled her eyes. Isn’t this the same kind of thing people were saying on New Year’s Eve in 1999?
Since then, he’s read other books by people who say they have seen similar if not identical visions of the same events, usually as part of a near-death experience. Almost all of them point to a timeline in the very near future.
As compelling as these accounts are to people who know they are living in the last days, we both realized it was possible that 1) the author was lying, 2) the author had been deceived or 3) the author had misinterpreted their experience. Our doubts aside, reading these predictions caused us to consider how well spiritually and temporally prepared we were for such times if we ever encountered them. We also reflected on the counsel we had received from our Church leaders over the years to store food, water and supplies.
And so we started prepping, modestly at first. Last weekend, during a not-so-uncommon trip to Cabela’s, my husband ran into an old friend from his mission and they started catching up. After seeing the items we were carrying (propane and ammo), he asked, “Are you guys going camping or something?” I laughed as my husband sheepishly explained that were just stocking up on some “essentials.” “Oh, are you guys preppers?,” his friend asked.
While I hadn’t ever thought of us as “preppers,” he made a good point. We were definitely doing something that most people don’t do: buying large quantities of propane.
