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"...in our lovely Deseret"
My wife (the Baroness) and I had a group Family Home Evening on Monday with two other couples. (We're all members of an exclusive group, informally called the White-Guys-With-Chinese-Wives Club. And, yes, we're racist...) We're all non-Utah natives who happen to be living in Utah for the time being, and we discussed the pros/cons of being a church member in Utah, versus living in other areas where members are fewer (California, Kansas, Taiwan...)
I tend to ignore rants against Utah from my friends and acquaintances (What? You've met a lot of Utahns you don't like? No kidding...you'll find people you don't like in EVERY SINGLE OTHER PART OF THE COUNTRY too, you know...), but we did have an interesting discussion about the good and the bad.
Good things about being a Church member in Utah:
1) Local broadcasts of Conference, firesides, and other church stuff. Don't have to drive to the stake center for church broadcasts or buy a satellite dish...
2) Church-oriented businesses (like Deseret Book) make it easy to buy church books or missionary supplies.
3) Entertainment venues (like comedy clubs) default to church standard material, so finding non-offensive entertainment is less of a scavenger hunt. (Do other parts of the country even have PG-rated comedy clubs?)
4) Abundance of church buildings means ward boundaries are smaller, and consequently chapels are usually located close by your home (usually within easy walking distance).
Bad things about being a Church member in Utah:
1) Lack of diversity. While the Provo and Salt Lake areas have a burgeoning (and underrated) Asian and Hispanic community, outside Salt Lake or Utah Valley it's a different story. When we attend community activities in other parts of the state, the Baroness is frequently the only non-white face in the entire crowd.
Worse than just being white, often it's 'white trash' white, which is a subject for a whole other post...
2) More 'bad' church members. It's not that the bad-Mormon-to-good-Mormon ratio is larger here than in other parts of the country, only that in other areas, the bad Mormons are generally long gone from the Church since it requires more effect to be a good active Mormon. Not so in Utah, where you can be a bad member and still be active (and often have high callings). This makes it harder to raise children to be good members because they have many, many counter-examples all around them. You'll find good and bad people wherever you go, of course, but when the bad people here are almost all LDS as well, being LDS loses some of its significance, and it's easier for children to grow up thinking being a 'C-' Mormon is okay since lots of other people are doing it.
3) A corollary to (2), fewer really good members. In Utah, there's more of a tendency to be 'complacent' Latter-Day Saints, often stagnant. Sure, you're 'active', but the actual spiritual motivation to progress is lacking, especially when lots of members around you are the same way. This is another consequence of church activity being 'too easy' in a sense here in Utah.
I'm reporting on our conversation, just to bring it up for public discussion. What advantages/disadvantages are there being LDS in your area of the country (or world)? Anything to add to the list?
April 1, 2004 in Religion | Permalink
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Comments
I used to live in both Provo and the SLC area. I'm currently near Seattle, and have had a few other stops as well.
I'd only quibble with one of your advantages:
1) Local broadcasts of Conference, firesides, and other church stuff ...
To me this is both a positive and a negative. There's something special about going to the stake center and being around other people committed enough to the gospel to be in attendance at the event. That being said, I do like having things available on TV. This year, I watched the YW session while my wife and daughter attended and I plan on attending Priesthood plus a Sunday session at the Stake center and watching the rest at home.
There are several things I like about being 'in the mission field':
(related to your disadvantages) active members seem more interested in helping each other stay active -- that's a poor description and an overgeneralization, but it's the best I can think of at the moment.
It's certainly easier to strike up missionary oriented discussions with people. I love talking about the gospel, and fewer people up here have been 'exposed' to it (and when they have, it's less likely to have been a personal interaction with a 'bad' member). On a related note, I don't have to spend so much energy screening potential missionary exchanges for the 'the gospel according to FARMS' brethren (I'm the Ward Mission Leader) -- nothing against FARMS, but milk before meat just makes sense.
I like having to push a little harder to go to the temple. I think it makes me treasure it more. "That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly" I guess. Anecdotally, I lived in Boston when the temple there was opened. Prior to the Boston Temple opening, we were in the Washington, DC Temple district, which meant an 8 hour drive to do temple work. Once the Boston Temple opened and our "temple commute" dropped to 45 minutes, our ward's temple attendance dropped.
It also seems like there's a bit more interest in hearing the brethren speak. Because they seem more distant, it seems like people are more hungry for contact with visiting General Authorities. Again, this is just my perception but I remember meetings with a visiting GA 'feeling' different in Seattle, Portland (OR), and Boston than in Provo or Salt Lake.
One thing I really miss is having local distribution center. A related benefit to being in the SLC area would be greater access to things like the auxilliary open houses around conference, the Family History Library, and the like. Oh, and on a non-church related note, I reallty miss smothered burritos with cheese and onions at La Frontera ...
Posted by: pate | Apr 1, 2004 1:29:42 PM
It does take more of an effort to be an active member 'in the mission field.' I would say, and this is purely selfish I admit, that the toughest thing about living here is being single. There's such a large source pool in Utah, especially around Salt Lake. And here in Georgia, the pool of single Mormon men is quite small. It's frustrating.
One of the great things about it is that the wards aren't quite so homogeneous, as you mentioned. It makes Gospel Doctrine really interesting because of the diverse backgrounds/cultures/experiences of everyone in class.
Posted by: Jan | Apr 1, 2004 1:46:12 PM
It's true, the harder you have to work for something, the more valuable it becomes. And, of course, the easier or more common something becomes, the more it gets overlooked or taken for granted.
I remember a girl in my high school telling me her testimony was the strongest when she was living in Washington, because there were very few members and plenty of opposition to the church from classmates. It was more difficult for her, but more rewarding. But when she moved to my high school in Idaho (similar to Utah in many aspects) she said her testimony took a sharp dive because it became 'too easy'. (She didn't specifically mention the fact that she undoubtedly met more 'bad' mormons in Idaho than she would have met in Washington, but I'm sure that played a factor also.)
Posted by: The Baron | Apr 1, 2004 3:36:33 PM
Lack of diversity? In Utah? What...are you blind to everything except pigmentation?
Utah has more diversity per capita than anyother place in the world. More speakers of foreign languages. More people that have lived in other countries for extended periods of time. More contacts & awareness of other parts of the world.
The color of your skin has nothing to do with diversity.
Posted by: lyle | Apr 2, 2004 5:10:14 PM
I'm not so sure living in a foreign country makes you more 'diverse'. More culturally literate, perhaps...
I served in Taiwan (and I'm an Asian Studies major), so I can tell you about the basic tenets of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, but that doesn't necessarily mean Buddhist principles have influenced my way of thinking. My cultural background is still about the same as Joe Elder next door who served his mission in Colorado.
From a strictly 'skin color' perspective, Salt Lake and Utah Counties are underrated as far as non-white faces--more than people give Utah credit for. Still, most of them are still church members. You'd have to knock on a lot of doors before you found someone who's Jewish or Muslim, for example. Would a typical classroom at UVSC or U of U really have the same diversity of culture and opinion in its students as one in California or Washington? (I'm discounting BYU for obvious reasons...) Even the so-called 'liberal' Mormons aren't, frankly, all that liberal--not compared to liberalism on the national front.
On the other hand, though, everyone in the Church knows church members can disagree on any number of things from politics to Sabbath worship, and in that aspect, there's more 'diversity' of opinion within the Church than most people outside the Church realize. I guess it all depends on what you consider 'diversity' to be, and what you're comparing Utah to. Different skin color, same religion = diverse? Same skin color, different philosophies and opinions = diverse? How diverse is 'diverse'? Utah might be pretty 'homogenous' compared to New York or California, but 'diverse' compared to Wyoming or Montana--depends on how you look at it...
Posted by: The Baron | Apr 2, 2004 9:59:52 PM
Why would one call oneself a baron or baroness? Even in jest it violates some form of LDS doctrine surely. A baron or baroness is such because of marriage, inheritance or endowment by a (human) king or queen.
Posted by: Kevin | Oct 5, 2006 11:30:40 PM
From wikipedia.com - Baron is a specific title of nobility or a more generic feudal qualification. The word baron comes from spanish baron, itself from Frankish baro meaning "freeman, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman." Ultimately it seems to mean a burden bearer.
Then again, it's not a real title, just like when my wife calls me the King of Screw-ups...oh wait...forget that.
Posted by: Tom | Oct 8, 2006 10:09:20 PM
