Embedded Files
Leadership Business Corner:
Updated list of stake welfare and self-reliance committee members:
Pr. Ted Griffis, Stake Presidency
Br. Steven Sarver, High Councilor, new addition to the committee
Sr. Chiemi Bentley, Stake Relief Society Presidency
Sr. Cynthia Prevatke, Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist
Sr. Debra Goodwin, Co-chair, Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist
Br. Michael Goodwin, Co-chair, Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Home Storage Center
2892 W. Diehl Rd. Naperville
Managers: Elder Rodger Kearley & Sister Kerry Kearley
HSC Phone: 1 (630)-369-1508
Hours
Tuesday: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Saturday: 8:00am - 10:00am By appointment only
call 1 (630)742-6285 (Kerry Kearley)
Click on the link below for a 7-page guide with links and resources
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gdynOWkr_q-JHWhGJMApunHbmfgtr5fv/view?usp=drive_link
October 2025 Self-Reliance Newsletter – Home Production and Storage
Leadership Business Corner: Changes in committee membership and other stake callings: The Addiction Recovery Program and Spouse and Family Support Program have changed. They are no longer being lead in the Rockford Stake on a weekly basis. They are being provided in other locations via zoom. For more information, contact me at 779-203-0451 or by return email. Sr. Goodwin has been released from the Stake Addiction Recovery Specialist and Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist callings and has been called as the Stake Employment Specialist and Family Search Center Coordinator for the Alpine Building.
Gardening tips: Make use of this unseasonally warm weather by keeping you plants alive and thriving by providing adequate water. This is a good time to select which fruit to save for seeds too. Prepare for the cold stratification of seeds.
Herb(s) of the Month Showcase: Strawberry and raspberry smoothies. When I lived on the farm, I went to pick strawberries. Remembering that the leaves contained vitamin C, I picked some of them. Walking back to the house, I saw the raspberries ripening. I picked some of them and the leaves too. I made a tea from the leaves and added the fruit for a most wonderful smoothie.
Hack of the month: You can make crocheted bread wrapper rugs 2-liter soda bottle string/rope can be used for making broom heads, crocheted items, macramé
Food Hack: Make retrograde pizza crust by freezing and reheating, after it has been cooked. Won’t spike blood sugar as much and helps feed gut bacteria. 30% of the food we purchase is wasted, what a waste. My Goal is to reduce my food waste by 50%
Noted difference between Home Production and Storage and Year’s Supply: Home Production is making your own necessities like clothing, shoes, furniture, food for consumption and storage, etc. Year’s supply includes all consumable necessities for continued existence, items like paper products, clothing, gloves, shoes, bedding, etc. and can include food items whether frozen, canned, dehydrated, etc.
The Newsletter: Home Production and Storage
H E R S H E Y S The is the second H of Hersheys.
From the web page:
http://rockfordstake.selfrelianceclub.com/B1_Home_Production_and_Storage.htm
Home Production and Storage
Home Production and Storage Standard: Each person or family produces as much as possible through gardening, sewing, and making household items. Each person and family learns techniques of home canning, freezing
Suggested Goals
a. Plant and care for a garden. (Gardening Module)
c. Where legally permitted, store a one-year supply of basic food, clothing, and, where possible, fuel. (Home Production and Storage Book)
d. Store an emergency supply of water. (Water Supply Module)
e. Additional personal goals.
Relief Society Preparedness and self-reliance questions (.pdf)
Benson Institute information:
Having Your Food Storage and Eating It Too (.pdf)
Family Sanitation (.zip)
Family Nutrition(.zip)
Family Health (.zip)
Cookbooks and Recipes (Caramels too) (.pdf)
End of Web Page insert
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Who do we store food and supplies for?
The Kingdom of God
Bishops Storehouse: home, ward, stake
We don’t have to share; we get to share.
Items worthy of storing:
Food
Water and purification necessities
Supplies and materials
First Aid and Medical supplies
Clothing
Tools
Seeds for food and storage
Perpetual foods: fruit trees and vines, herbs
Fuel
Personal Protection gear
Skills and Knowledge
Vodka for wound cleansing and making tinctures
Consider Off site storage for protection from localized events like tornados, windstorms, etc.
Consider storage facility rental to be like food insurance
President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "We have built grain storage and storehouses and stocked them with the necessities of life in the event of a disaster." But those goods cannot help us if we cannot reach them. He continued, "The best storehouse is the family storeroom." It's the most accessible reserve in times of need and the best suited to our individual needs.
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October 2020 General Conference
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Key principles to manage your finances include the payment of tithes and offerings, elimination and avoiding debt, preparing and living within a budget, and saving for the future.
Key home storage principles include the storage of food, the storage of water, and the storage of other necessities based on individual and family needs, all because "the best storehouse is the home, which becomes the "most accessible reserve in times of need.
As we embrace spiritual principles and seek inspiration from the Lord, we will be guided to know the Lord's will for us, individually and as families, and how best to apply the important principles of temporal preparedness. the most important step of all is to begin.
It’s been 5 years since we’ve heard the general conference preparedness talks by Elder Bednar,
Bishop Waddell and President Nelson.
Where do we stand on that council today?
Have we heard the prophets and apostles and other church leaders, and obeyed?
Respectfully submitted:
Michael Goodwin
Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist
779-203-0451
September 2025 Self-Reliance NEWSLETTER – Social Emotional Spiritual
September is National Preparedness Month.
It is also the peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season.
For more information: https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/emergency-preparedness-and-response/stake-ward-emergency-planning-guide?lang=eng
- and - https://www.ready.gov/september
Gardening tips
Preserve tomatoes for many months in wood ashes?
https://wire.farmradio.fm/farmer-stories/burundi-farmer-finds-new-technique-for-preserving-tomatoes/
I was asked in the Kishwaukee ward, how to save seed. My best experience is with tomato seeds and beans.
I recommend the fermentation method as the seeds as it kills some seed borne diseases in the process.
Simply scoop or squeeze seeds into a glass container. Add 2x amount of water. If you stir daily, moldy scum may not form but that’s up to you. After 3 to 7 days, seeds will settle out to the bottom and other debris will gather on the top. Pour off the pulp and other scrap and decant the seeds with additional water, until they are clean.
Pour into a strainer, then onto paper towels or napkins, spreading out as you go.
Let them dry for about 2 weeks. Break up the clumps and put into container to keep them from air and heat. Label well and date. You can break up the clumps now, when you distribute or when you plant.
Note: only save seeds from certain open pollinated or heirloom tomato varieties. Some older varieties, especially the potato leaf tomatoes, like brandywine, have protruding styles and will receive pollen from other tomatoes, creating unpure seed, like hybrids.
You can experiment as your heart desires.
Beans are self-pollinating and will not cross. Other crops may require isolation distances to keep the seed pure. Carrots will cross with queen-anns lace readily and will need to be caged.
Additional resources follow:
Seed to Seed Complete - Suzanne Ashworth – 228 pages
Seed Savers Exchange provides this information:
We have found the best dry beans to grow and eat are Kentucky Wonder Pole beans.
Herb(s) of the Month Showcase:
Stinging Nettles
High in iron, provides cordage and is a wonderful compost activator.
https://eclecticherb.com/blogs/news/freeze-dried-nettles
Hack of the month
With the glut of tomatoes and cucumbers, our favorite way to eat them is a recipe we brought back from our mission to Bulgaria.
Shopska Salata – cucumber and tomato salad
Various combinations of chopped cucumber, tomato, red onion, red sweet pepper, feta cheese, red wine vinegar and olive oil.
Late and breaking news: Vagus Nerve, probiotics, prebiotics and resistant starch
Expansion of information on the training done in the Kishwaukee Ward on August 31.
It all starts out with a visit to a dietician and the concern about glucose spikes caused by diet. She mentioned something she learned and thought to be absurd. That is putting a starchy food in the refrigerator overnight and converting the starch into resistant starch.
It’s amazing to know how your refrigerator can be one of your best dietary friends.
We had read about resistant starch before and found this process intriguing.
It involves products such as potatoes, pasta, rice, beans and bread. Now, most of these items are never refrigerated before being eaten, except for left overs and maybe bread to preserve an extra loaf longer.
What the cooling does is converts the starch from a quickly digestible form into a crystalline form which is resistant to digestion. This means that instead of it being converted into glucose quickly, causing glucose spikes in the blood, it passes from the stomach and small intestine relatively undigested and performs its magic in the large intestine. Here it is digested somewhat and acts like a fiber, pushing the food along the system, relatively unscathed by the digestion process. But, it also acts as a prebiotic, as food for the beneficial bacteria, viruses and fungi to multiply and perform their functions, promoting gut health.
Now, here is where the fun begins.
Your gut health affects you in ways unimaginable. It affects your Vagus nerve. This nerve is the largest in the body and connects you brain with your heart, lungs and digestive tract. It is bidirectional and you can manipulate it, somewhat.
It is called the tenth cranial nerve and has both sensory and motor functions.
We had talked about the vagus nerve in a ministering visit to an older couple just the previous Monday. I asked Debra to make sure I wasn’t dreaming it and she confirmed the discussion. Then I was reading about resistive starch and gut health and it came up again. Thirdly, Debra mentioned she came across it in her research on lymphedema health. All within the same week.
This nerve influences your mood, stress, anxiety, depression, bi-polar tendencies, brain health like memory, executive function, emotional response, etc.
Have you ever had a gut feeling, butterflys in your stomach, etc? This is the Vagus nerve working. It works with the response to stress and danger, or the fight or flight response.
You can stimulate the vagus nerve and calm down by meditation, yoga, cold water treatments, singing or humming and deep breathing exercises through the nose. This latter is very beneficial as it causes nitric oxide to be created in the nasal passage which increases the effectiveness of oxygen absorption.
Beside feeding your gut bacteria resistant starch, you can increase the level of live bacteria by eating fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, some cheeses and lacto-fermented vegetables like kimchi, sourkraut and pickles, all which contain various beneficial bacteria, and of course, there are supplements you can take. These are probiotics. The heat processing of any of these foods kills the live bacteria.
Suggested topics for further study: Vagus nerve, gut health, microbiome, prebiotics and probiotics.
Caveat: I am not a doctor but have researched these topics in depth and am currently striving to implement them in my life.
More Late Information:
Broccoli sprouts contain 100 times the amount of sulforaphane as does the mature broccoli. Sulforaphane can balance the gut microbiome. improve the function of intestinal cells, and positively impact bowel movements
Last Late Information received just last Friday:
2025 Food Revolution Summit:
FREE and LIVE from September 17–24, 2025 starting at 10:45 am ET / 7:45 am PT each day. See attached document for more information and link.
The Newsletter: Spiritual Social Emotional Health:
Links on the Rockford Stake Self-Reliance Web Site include:
http://rockfordstake.selfrelianceclub.com/
The Area Temporal Preparedness Guide:
Page 22:
Emotional Preparedness: Guidelines
Page 24:
19 ways to manage stress and anxiety.
Becoming-Self-Reliant-and-Resilient-Family
87 page book focuses on the family becoming self-reliant and emotionally resilient.
Imported from web page:
http://rockfordstake.selfrelianceclub.com/Social Emotional Strength1.htm
Self-Reliance Group Class
Emotional Resilience - pdf manual available here
To Sign up for this Class or for more information:
Course Coordinator
Other resources available:
Becoming-Self-Reliant-and-Resilient-Family - Military Focus - 84 pages (Link)(.pdf)
Addiction Recovery Information
Spiritual Strength through:
The Standard Works:
Come Follow Me Sunday Lessons
Christlike Attribute Activity (.pdf)
No Contention Business Card - English (.pdf)
No Contention Business Card - Spanish (.pdf)
No Contention Business Card - Swahili (.pdf)
Social-Emotional and Spiritual Strength
Standard:
Each person builds spiritual strength to meet life's challenges with confidence and stability by learning to love God and communicate with him in personal prayer, to love and serve his neighbor, and to love and respect himself through righteous living and self-mastery.
Social-emotional and spiritual strength is increased by living the principles of the gospel.
6. Social-Emotional and Spiritual Strength
a. Read the scriptures daily.
b. Have personal and family prayer morning and night.
c. Repent of wrongdoing.
d. Attend Church meetings regularly and participate in Church activities.
e. Hold family home evening weekly.
f. Perform frequent acts of service to family members and others.
g. Other:
Comments and suggestions are always welcomed.
If you don’t wish to be on this mailing list, please let me know.
Respectfully submitted:
Michael Goodwin
Stake Welfare and Self-Reliance Specialist
779-203-0451
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