The things I miss about Utah (of course Tuccanos in Provo!!) And don’t laugh….I miss the billboards on the side of the freeway advertizing Temple marriage and going on a mission, i miss how you can walk into the grocery store and hear someone speaking of priesthood meeting and know EXACTLY what they’re talking about. I miss how on mondays you’ll see a zillion families with their 5 strollers walking around the Temple, or how on Wednesdays you see moms crying outside of the MTC, I miss seeing everyone on the streets in church entire and knowing they’re going to the exact same place as you, I miss cookies from visiting teachers, I miss seeing couples of all ages on Friday and saturday nights on their “date-night” I miss the feeling of walking into the creamery. I miss salt lake, I miss how if I had a bad day I can drive 3 minutes to the Temple or 20 to another temple of MY choice,

Yes we all have our ideas of “utah mormons” but my husband and I are from FL and I lived in Utah for about 5 years. I had a HORRIBLE experience in FL. I was young and attractive and when i converted instead of the girls welcoming me in, they treated me as competition and then when the few select RM’s returned home and I started dating a few, the girls’s claws came out, it was horrible, they were insecure, and wrather than going to the gym and putting on some makeup, they tore down others to make themselves feel better. When I went to Utah……it gets me teary just thinking about how wonderful an experience it was, everyone told me I would hate it, but Utah was where I learned how mormons were supposed to treat eachother, I learned what the gospel was really about, there is no way, no matter how many books I were to read, that I would be as knowledgeable in the gospel as I am now had I not moved there. no one called me names and their were plenty of pretty girls around that no one was mean to me. The spirit is just every where 24/7 and I loved that so much. Being a convert, I moved to utah shortly after I was baptized not knowing anyone, I was 18, I needed a secure environment, a place to learn further about the church….it was so easy to be good in utah and in the process I was able to build my strong foundation. I love utah and would reccomend it to anyone.

One thing that occurred to me while re-reading everyone’s comments is that I wonder if this is more of a “transplant” problem. I wonder if someone like me is exactly the kind of person who is most likely to offend and should therefore be even more sensitive. I think the false doctrine of the superiority of the “mission field” could definitely contribute to this problem.

Also, and in summary, I think one point that I failed to emphasize in my post is what a wonderful place Utah is to teach us one fundamental lesson: there are many ways to be a Mormon. Let me edit that, there are many ways to be a good Mormon. nuff said.

As for the thought expressed earlier that being open-minded and welcoming is somehow a new concept and a change we need to make, I just need to state that I and many of the wonderful “older” women I know would never ask someone why they weren’t married or didn’t have any children.

Do people in my ward sometimes say things without thinking? I’m sure they do, but that is not unique to Utah. I have watched people in my ward love and welcome people from all walks of life into our congregation and even forgive a man who robbed many of them of their retirement savings. It isn’t that different from the ward I grew up in away from Utah, and that ward suffered from some pretty serious heartbreaks as well.

My husband often gives me some good advice I think could help ease this apparent and really unfortunate conflict. Whenever someone says something that rubs me the wrong way he asks me to look at whether or not the person who said it meant to offend. In very few instances can I honestly say the person meant to hurt me.

Thanks Maralise–you’re a brave woman to take this on. But I appreciate your efforts and your beautifully expressed thoughts. This is one of the nicest and most civilized discussions on this topic I’ve read.

For me, it’s hard because I feel like I spend a lot of time fighting the stereotype, a lot of energy proving I’m not a “Utah Mormon” which after as many new wards as I’ve been in, is getting old. It’s starting to feel like a waste of my limited time. So, as much as I want the stereotype to go away, I don’t think it will. But, conversations like this I hope will help.

And about the LDS/Non-LDS divide: my non-LDS niece who lives in Utah is consistently complaining about “the Mormons” and how much she hates them. It was a shock for her when my dad reminded her that they, her grandparents and cousins, were Mormon. “Do you hate us too?” he asked. “No, not you guys, of course,” she responded. I think the attitude of separation (most often fed to the children from the parents) comes from both sides of the LDS/non-LDS divide, sadly serving no one.

The Utah=Zion equation is obviously a false idea. Utah is a place where quite a few people choose to live. Where quite a few Mormons (good, bad, ugly) live. Nothing more, nothing less.

On the other hand, as a teenager I saw a family in my Iowa ward decide that they *must* move back to Utah in order to safely raise their teenagers–within 1 year both of their girls and their son’s new girlfriend were pregnant. A few years later my aunt and uncle, who for their whole married lives had told anyone who would listen that they would never be happy until they lived in Utah again, moved back. My younger cousin immediately found a girlfriend & got her pregnant, and my aunt and uncle seem no happier than they were in the east.

There are a couple of things I have observed that seem to contribute to the Utah stereotypes:

“Native” members of my ward here in North Carolina say that until the last decade or so, anyone who moved from Utah came with the “we’ll show you how it’s done” attitude.

Additionally, the belief that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the one true church of God here on the earth is sometimes extrapolated to mean that people of other religions don’t have a clue. I sat in a Sunday School class in Bountiful about 2 years ago and listened to the Sunday School teacher explain that the reason a professional football player might spike a ball in the endzone after a touchdown and fall to his knees to give (very) public and loud thanks to God is because he “doesn’t know as much as we do.” After a few more disparaging comments about people of other religions I made a comment about my experiences having lived in North Carolina for 10 years. The teacher ignored what I said and went on in the same line until someone else made a comment saying that they really felt a lot of people were offended by the not uncommon LDS attitude that we know so much better than everyone else when it comes to God & religion. After having lived more than a dozen years in the Bible belt I must say that we do not. I am surrounded by people who love the Lord and live closer to Him than I do.

I also think that it can be a challenge to live in Utah as a non-member. I had one friend who lived in Utah for about 5 years and finally begged her husband to ask for a transfer. Her children were not included by the neighborhood children because they weren’t LDS, and when my friend drank a cup of coffee the LDS women around her just about had a heart attack. (And this was an upper middle class neighborhood up near the University of Utah—where you might expect less narrow mindedness.) A few weeks ago another friend told me that a co-worker in Cache Valley is unhappy because neighborhood children aren’t allowed to play with her children because they are non-members.

Obviously each one of these experiences is a “unique” event. But enough unique events over time probably give rise to the stereotypes. I agree that it helpful to know which things cause problems, so that we can make sure our behavior isn’t inadvertently causing offense. If I could go back to my 5 years in Idaho there are definitely some things I’d do differently…

Sorry this is so long–it’s something I’ve thought a lot about!