Gardening

"Grow all the food that you feasibly can. . . .Develop your skills in home [food] preservation and storage."
—Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, May 1976, 124–25

"We have asked everyone wherever possible to assist with a home garden for the production of food so you may enjoy the efforts of your labors and help provide for your needs. We urge parents not only to engage in this activity, but to let their boys and girls share in helping with the garden. They will not only learn the value and joy of work, but it will help them develop a sense of responsibility as they participate in such family projects."
—Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, Nov. 1978, 4

"Children may be given assignments also to take care of the garden, and this will be far better than to have them for long hours sitting at a television."
—Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, May 1976, 5

"Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting, cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest?. . . Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we live providently and extend to our children their pioneer heritage."
—Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball (1982), 376–77

Food Production and Storage

"In order to be self-reliant, we should have sufficient food, clothing, and shelter. We are therefore counseled to store, use, and know how to produce and prepare essential items."
—Providing in the Lord’s Way: A Leader's Guide to Welfare (Welfare handbook, 1990), 7; see also D&C 38:30

"Every man should, however small the opportunity, contribute to the production of food. . . . Men who touch the soil, ever so lightly, become changed men. They live more natural lives. They absorb, somehow, the clean wholesomeness of God’s earth."
—John A. Widtsoe, How the Desert Was Tamed (1947), 18–19

The Principle of Work

"Work is a great thing. It is the law of this earth. When Adam was cast out, upon him was passed the glorious sentence, 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.' . . . Work is a wonderful thing, no matter what that work may be."
—J. Reuben Clark, in Conference Report, Oct. 1936, 112

"Let us work for what we need. Let us be self-reliant and independent. Salvation can be obtained on no other principle. Salvation is an individual matter, and we must work out our own salvation, in temporal as well as in spiritual things."
— Marion G. Romney, Ensign, Nov. 1976, 124