I Can Sleep When The Wind Blows

When I was a boy I went camping with my grandfather, Carlon Hinton. He was a retired farmer who loved to tell stories from his farm life in Arizona. My cousins and I huddled close around the campfire, with the wind howling behind us, as we listened to our grandfather tell about hiring a new ranch hand...

I owned 10 sections of land just south of the airport at Luke Air Force Base west of Phoenix, Arizona. One day I found that I needed some help managing all of the cows, cotton, and corn that I had planted, so I put an advertisement in the newspaper for a farm foreman. Over the next couple of days I had several people call on me to request employment, but most of the men decided that the job was too much work and decided not to start. One man in particular captured my attention when he came to me and said, "Carlon, I can sleep when the wind blows." This statement struck me as odd, but I needed the help so I hired him on the spot. After several weeks of training, followed by a much-needed vacation on my part, I returned home during a great storm. It was one of those Arizona monsoons, a blow the doors off the barn kind of wind storm! I immediately went to my new ranch hand's house and knocked on his window: tap tap tap, then Pound Pound Pound, then BANG BANG BANG! After several minutes of pounding a very annoyed foreman came to the door and ask what I needed. I said, "Can you not hear the wind? Do you not see the rain? We need to get the chickens and the cows in and close the barn doors with bolts to keep them safe against this storm!" My new foreman put his hand on my shoulder and calmly said, "Remember, I can sleep when the wind blows." I told him I was not concerned with his sleeping habits, I was concerned with my farm! He explained that he could sleep when the wind blew because he lived by the motto, "Be Prepared." He always closed up the barn and bolted the doors and was prepared for a storm every time he left the farm. That was how he could sleep when the wind blew. 

My cousins and I were mesmerized by this story and wondered what we could do to be able to sleep when the wind blew. After a few minutes of silence, one of my cousins finally asked, "Grandpa, how can we be prepared?" If you knew my grandfather, you would know that he was a great scoutmaster and this was exactly the response he was hoping for. He quoted the Scout Oath and Scout Law to us, then told us that we needed to "be prepared" for a mission, a righteous temple marriage, and that we needed to prepare to be the leaders of our generation by studying the leaders of previous generations.

I will be forever grateful to my grandfather for teaching me how to "sleep when the wind blows." 

Helaman 5:12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.