Non-mormon family looking to relocate to Lehi (Salt Lake City, Sandy: for sale, HOA fees)

[danco]

We also considered St. George for relocation from San Marcos Ca.
As it turned out the prevailing religion had little to do with our final
decision. It's a great place for retirees - my folks are building a home
there now. For us personally not a good fit - desert climate, lack of
diversity, underfunded schools. We do like to visit, wonderful parks.
I would suggest bring your work with you, the area lacks for skilled jobs
and the housing market is overvalued. This may also cause for out
of towner resentment. If religion is the last issue I don't see an issue.

[living in st george]

.... I see everyone's point on the subject. Kids will be kids....And in that respect kids will be like their parents. They watch, they hear, and they learn by example.

I am tired of striking up a conversation with someone, and at some point in the banter, always being asked "are you LDS" or "which ward do you belong to". It's like they are feeling you out, seeing if they like you, and then needing to know if they are one of them.

I am almost to the point that I feel like saying "why yes I am!" the next time I am asked. My husband often tells people he is "non-practicing" ... Should we be like the characters from the Dr. Seuss books and wear stars on our breasts so that we are all like one another? So that we can fit in?

I understand that the church is a "social thing" for many. And I can understand the importance of religion. That is not what my concern or what my problem is. It's the fact that religion is such an important attribute to who you are, if you are going to fit in.

I have many Catholic, Jewish, and other VERY religious friends who go to church or temple. Who spend time with Bible study and their groups. But NEVER, EVER did I feel like their was a difference between us, as I do here in Utah.

I have many Jewish friends. And I am not Jewish. I go shopping with them. I watch their kids. We go to the movies. We hang out. I eat in their homes, and I have been invited to many a Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur dinner.

And although religion may come up in a topic of discussion, none have ever so boldly needed to know if I was "one of them" when we first met. It was always something that was learned later on, after a friendship was on its way. It was not the building block to start it.

And I am just speaking openly here. I am not mad or angry. I am just sharing my opinion for anyone who wants to know.

At one point I even thought I would just go ahead and join the church. I believe in God - what the heck. But why should I have to pay to belive in God. And more importantly, why should I have to pay to have people want to be my friends.

God is everywhere. You don't need to be in a place of worship to speak with God. And when I strike up a conversation with somebody, it's because I want to talk to them - and maybe make a new friend. Not see if they are in the same "club".

Most importantly I am concerned for my children's well-being. How they grow up, and how they turn out. I don't want anything to happen to them that would influence them in any direction to make them feel they were not good enough, or that God didn't love them because they were not Mormon.

I encourage my children to make friends. To keep knocking on the neighbors door. To make strides so that change is possible....even it it isn't wanted. Maybe some will come around.

What I don't understand is why the LDS don't encourage the same with their children. Why aren't LDS children allowed in non-LDS homes to play? Why do they play with the other LDS children on the block, but don't want anything to do with my children. Why don't they invite my children to their birthday parties, or bother to come to my children's if they are invited? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

As much as you don't want to think that there is a problem, and your are glad that everybod has "calmed down", I tend to disagree wtih you - to say that I can see a problem. If my son joins a baseball team, and he is the only non-LDS player - do you really think he will REALLY fit in? He may play with the team, joke with the team, share a laugh and a hot dog with the team. But he will always, in some respect be different.

I am just the outsider looking in.....

[coolcats]

I didn’t grow up in Utah, and am pretty new here, so maybe my perspective is Pollyannaish on what its like to live here, raise kids here etc. I actually agree with you and Elder Shawn that Utah can be a weird place and the religion factor can be played up way too much. I still think it’s really strange to hear ads for the latest LDS book or movie on the radio.

As for not fitting in – that can happen anywhere. I grew up as LDS in the Midwest. I had lots of experiences of religious bias.

For example, I was casually dating the daughter of a Lutheran Minister. Her mom was always nice to me, but I could tell her dad didn’t really approve of me. One night as I pulled into her driveway to drop her off, she said she had to talk to me. She said she was really concerned for my soul and started crying as she was explaining why the LDS religion was wrong. She said she couldn’t see me again if I didn’t change religions – which obviously I didn’t.

Another time, I was the only LDS kid at a party when a group of kids who had been drinking came in. One of them, totally plastered, out of the blue challenged me in front of the whole room of 20 or 30 kids that the LDS Church was a cult. In fact now that I think about it, that’s probably why I reacted to RCL’s post the way I did.

Another time I went to a Pentecostal service with a friend. This happened to be the time the preacher picked a handful of religions to tell what was wrong with them. I sat through about five minutes of “if you want to be a god, be a Mormon. But if you want to be saved be a Pentecostal” before he moved on to the next group. My friend and his family were embarrassed and apologized after the service.

So such experiences aren’t limited to just in Utah. Maybe if you are religious, it is human nature to think your particular brand is better. Maybe the sheer concentration of LDS in Utah magnifies that?

[living in st george]

But that still doesn't answer my question as to why LDS children are not allowed to play with non-LDS children or come into their homes....

[coolcats]

Not explicitly at least. Maybe some Utah LDS parents are narrow-minded in that regard, I'm not sure. I can't comment on your particular situation and my kids (4 and 2) are too young to play outside without parental supervision, so I'm not the best person to answer that.

My daughter was invited to our neighbor's birthday party, so she went and we reciprocated. The neighbor's kids are older -- about 7,9, 11, so our kids don't really do much with them just due to the age differences.

Outside of Utah that is certainly not the case -- most of my friends weren't LDS and I was at their houses all the time.

[pinkpalace]

I think it's a narrow-minded parent problem. It's happened in Idaho too. For what it's worth, it wouldn't surprise me if some narrow-minded Baptists had the same policy.

Some LDS people (and I used to be one of them) believe there's something very wrong with people who drink coffee, iced tea, smoke cigarettes, and/or drink beer. And I'm not talking about the neighborhood drunk, I mean the family that has one or two beers on the weekend, watching the game. They would NEVER want their kids to be in a house where the kids might (gasp!) see a bottle or two of beer in the fridge. It's pretty serious. There isn't much of a distinction (in their mind) between drinking beer and smoking crack.

Not all LDS families are like this, mind you. But there are a lot of them out there.

[Elder_Shawn]

Originally Posted by pinkpalace

I think it's a narrow-minded parent problem. It's happened in Idaho too. For what it's worth, it wouldn't surprise me if some narrow-minded Baptists had the same policy.

Some LDS people (and I used to be one of them) believe there's something very wrong with people who drink coffee, iced tea, smoke cigarettes, and/or drink beer. And I'm not talking about the neighborhood drunk, I mean the family that has one or two beers on the weekend, watching the game. They would NEVER want their kids to be in a house where the kids might (gasp!) see a bottle or two of beer in the fridge. It's pretty serious. There isn't much of a distinction (in their mind) between drinking beer and smoking crack.

Not all LDS families are like this, mind you. But there are a lot of them out there.

I grew up in a home where both my parents drank beer. My friends always thought it was funny to see beer in our fridge and in our garage when they came over to play. I guess my parents would be considered jack mormons. They believe in the principles, but would rather do yard work on sundays. Most people think it is strange that both my brother and I both served missions due to the circumstances in which we were raised.

Parents these days are freaked out about everything, so I think they tend to take every precaution necessary to keep them safe....if that includes deciding where, when, and what their children eat more power to them. I'd say the majority of the problems arise from the hardcore mormons. My wife was raised that way and I've slowly been bringing her back to Earth!

[coolcats]

I’ll try to say this tactfully since this is about my mother-in-law and I'm sort of judging her judging, but anyway... She probably is classified as a hardcore Mormon. She’s lived in her Utah comfort zone for her whole life (except for two years when she went to school in Hawaii and met my father-in-law).

She says some things -- even about other Mormons -- that drive me crazy. She has an opinion about everyone’s lifestyle. I really think it’s more of a personality trait and she’s in the minority, but maybe not as much as I thought given the response here.

Anyway her zeal is quite a juxtaposition against the laid back Polynesian culture of my father-in-law

What a lot of non-LDS don’t know is there is a whole Utah/Non-Utah Mormon rift. My mom is of the opinion that it’s better for LDS children to be raised outside of Utah to because the homogeneous population makes it too easy to go along with the crowd and not develop one’s own beliefs.

Of course it’s easy to be blind to one’s own family of orientation idiosyncrasies, but I really like how my mom and maternal grandparents handled religion. In my opinion, they were sincere and relaxed, without being overbearing. My dad is not practicing LDS either.

I’ll finish by saying that I like Utah quite a bit. It’s a more relaxed lifestyle for me here than back in Washington DC where we lived until last year. But I’m not beholden to this state. I think I could be equally happy elsewhere. My wife’s had some health problems. That’s why we came back -- so she could have some family support while I go to school. I’ll stay if I can get a good job after graduation.

[DP525]

Elder Shawn and Coolcats,

Nice to hear you guys open up and share your thoughts on the thinking behind some of the Mormon parents. Your insights might just help me deal with some over-zealous neighbors if I ever have issues with them.

You guys are alright. If you drank I'd invite you over for a Colorado microbrew when I get moved in.

[MoMark]

(quote)
My wife and I have been in our current house in the Salt Lake area for over four years. Since we first moved in, we have tried over and over and over to extend ourselves socially to the other young couples in our ward (for the non-LDS, a "ward" is a local LDS congregation). We have tried to make friends, being proactive and not just waiting for people to make friends with us. This has worked to some small extent. We have managed to form one casual aquaintanceship with another family - but that's it. More often that not, our dinner invitations and other offers of social interaction have been rejected, sometimes rudely. "We're too busy" is the usual and totally lame excuse we get. Of course, it's not that they're too busy; it's that they aren't interested in anything other than their own little lives.


Jeez Neo, I just moved here to southwest Missouri in June 05 and finally moved into my home in Jan. this year, already have a solid circle of friends who care about me and invite me to functions ALL THE TIME. When I was living in an Inn while looking for a property to buy, they constantly invited me to dinners and kept me fed with home-cooked meals, as well as inviting me to functions like local theatre, dinner theater, art shows, etc. As for inviting people over for dinner, I invited all my neighbors and made a dinner most of Middle America likes; a hamburger/sausage meatloaf using a 3 to 1 ratio of beef hamburger to sausage, (3lbs of hamburger/1lb. of sausage), two cans of Creme of Mushroom soup, 2.5 cups of bread crumbs, two eggs (holds everything together so it doesn't crumble easily), 1 roll of crushed Ritz crackers, 1 tbs of fresh ground black pepper, 1 tbs of Lemon Pepper, sprinkled garlic powder, 1 large minced up white onion, mixed altogether and formed into loaves, then I draped the whole surface with half-cooked thickcut bacon strips (half-cooked to drain off a lot of the fat, otherwise it's too rich), then baked 1 hour at 400F in glass pans (best meatloaf you can make, absolutely mouthwateringly delicious and you don't need ketchup!). I then did 5lbs of garlic mashed potatoes, do the potatoes normally and add a 1/2 cup of half & half creme, then I used an entire bulb of garlic that was peeled and diced, sauteed in a stick of butter gently, then added to the mixing bowl with the potatoes and blended in. Add another stick of cut up butter to the potatoes as you mix too while it's steaming hot as you're blending it. Then I waited until 8 minutes before the meatloaf was done to do 2lbs of steamed green beans with freshly fried bacon bits thrown in a couple of minutes before they were done. My neighbors stayed for HOURS ..oh, they polished off a two layer chocolate cake I baked with homemade buttercreme frosting for dessert too...THERE WAS NO FOOD LEFT and smiles all around ...and they have asked me when is my next dinner lol.. EVERYONE loves a good meatloaf...!!