What non-Mormons should know about moving to Utah (Salt Lake City, Sandy: insurance, high crime)

[Texan in Utah]

Hello to all.

I moved to the SLC area from San Antonio, TX just over a year ago and I would like to let people moving here know what I didnt before moving here.

1. All public middle and high schools have a Mormon seminary building at the edge of the school property. During the school day, all Mormon kids leave to go to the Mormon seminary and all of the non-mormon kids stay in class. This creates segregation in the public school system.

2. Upon ordering a drink in a bar, your driver license will be scanned into a computer system where it is kept on file for 3 days for every officer to see.

3. If you dont work in a large corporation where civil rights are upheld, do your very best to tell the Mormons you feel uncomfortable talking about their religion. Doing this will prevent a hostile work enviroment and potentially save your job.

4. Do all of your housework on Sundays because most business are closed.

5. If youre not Mormon, you might be happiest living in Salt Lake County. Avoid Utah County if you are not Mormon. Nice places to live in Salt Lake County are Sandy, South Jordan, some parts of Murray, and the Salt Lake County side of Draper. Tooele has a large military presence, so its an okay place for non-mormons to live also. West Valley & Rose park areas are high crime.

[kaytidid]

No. Not ALL Mormons leave class to attend Seminary. It is an elective..the same as auto shop, photography, horticulture, ect. They are not REQUIRED to attend Seminary. Also, it is only high schools that have it. I don't think I have ever seen a middle/jr high school with a seminary building!

[robertpolyglot]

Originally Posted by Texan in Utah

Hello to all.

I moved to the SLC area from San Antonio, TX just over a year ago and I would like to let people moving here know what I didnt before moving here.

1. All public middle and high schools have a Mormon seminary building at the edge of the school property. During the school day, all Mormon kids leave to go to the Mormon seminary and all of the non-mormon kids stay in class. This creates segregation in the public school system.

2. Upon ordering a drink in a bar, your driver license will be scanned into a computer system where it is kept on file for 3 days for every officer to see.

3. If you dont work in a large corporation where civil rights are upheld, do your very best to tell the Mormons you feel uncomfortable talking about their religion. Doing this will prevent a hostile work enviroment and potentially save your job.

4. Do all of your housework on Sundays because most business are closed.

5. If youre not Mormon, you might be happiest living in Salt Lake County. Avoid Utah County if you are not Mormon. Nice places to live in Salt Lake County are Sandy, South Jordan, some parts of Murray, and the Salt Lake County side of Draper. Tooele has a large military presence, so its an okay place for non-mormons to live also. West Valley & Rose park areas are high crime.

I'm glad that people periodically chime in with their experiences and, if people come forward with this type of post, then there must be something to it.

Regarding some specific items:

1) Was speaking to a 25 yo girl in 2007 who was doing a masters elsewhere. She told me she was from the SLC area. I asked her if she was Mormon. She said "No. I was raised Catholic. I really don't practice. I couldn't wait to get out of there." She mentioned that, at times, she felt the segregation.

3) If in SLC, a non-Mormon SHOULD be working for the type of place large enough to take civil rights seriously. Also, if things start going sideways, they should start documenting everything from the very beginning.

5) I don't know all the counties, but I believe that's the county that actually contains Salt Lake City which is somewhat more demographically diverse. The important thing for a non-Mormon to do if living in a place like SLC is to find other non-Mormon friends, stat.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Just to be clear, seminaries are on church-owned property, usually across the street from the high school. NOT on school property. As noted above, not all LDS kids attend seminary.

If you have done ANY reading of the threads here, you will have noticed that everyone, including some very devout LDS, tell people not to move to Utah county. How that can be a surprise is a mystery to me!

We also tell you that most businesses are closed on Sundays except groceries and the major chains like WalMart, McDonalds, etc. Many locally owned stores are closed but not all - Harmon's is open on Sundays with the same hours as on other days.

Sandy and South Jordan have higher numbers of LDS than the downtown, University, and Sugar House areas. Not sure why the OP thinks htey are so great if she wants to avoid Mormonx.

[movingonagain777]

I have never had any of the experiences described by the OP. I live in South Jordan and I have been welcomed and respected as a non LDS. I have worked for Mormons in the past and my experience was fantastic! My religious preference was never a topic of conversation. My husband works in an environment with a 90% ratio of Mormons in Utah county and has never had an issue. Perhaps because we don't have any issues??? I love shopping on Sunday!! It's very quiet. The movie theater is great on Sunday as well!! Quite frankly I don't care who is Mormon or not Mormon. I don't think it's a concern for most folks relocating here. The population is a great mix and statistically the Salt Lake area is 50/50. I think the major concern is the inversions.

[altajoe]

I have never even shown my drivers license when ordering alcohol, let alone have it scanned.

[irman]

Comments inserted

Originally Posted by Texan in Utah

Hello to all.

I moved to the SLC area from San Antonio, TX just over a year ago and I would like to let people moving here know what I didnt before moving here.

You should get used to it sooner or later ... Just like hanging from a rope, after 5 minutes you would not complain anymore ...

1. All public middle and high schools have a Mormon seminary building at the edge of the school property. During the school day, all Mormon kids leave to go to the Mormon seminary and all of the non-mormon kids stay in class. This creates segregation in the public school system.

Nobody ever stated that you have to stay *in school*, You could join those *Mormon kids* !
Whoopeee ... get out of class !!!

2. Upon ordering a drink in a bar, your driver license will be scanned into a computer system where it is kept on file for 3 days for every officer to see.

So what ?? Have anything to hide ??? Next time you are in a big store, look up and smile at the cameras !

3. If you dont work in a large corporation where civil rights are upheld, do your very best to tell the Mormons you feel uncomfortable talking about their religion. Doing this will prevent a hostile work enviroment and potentially save your job.

Never had that feeling where I worked !

4. Do all of your housework on Sundays because most business are closed.

Nooooo , go shopping because all the Mormons are at church !!! (Supposedly ...)

5. If youre not Mormon, you might be happiest living in Salt Lake County. Avoid Utah County if you are not Mormon. Nice places to live in Salt Lake County are Sandy, South Jordan, some parts of Murray, and the Salt Lake County side of Draper. Tooele has a large military presence, so its an okay place for non-mormons to live also. West Valley & Rose park areas are high crime.

I may agree with you just a bit here !

Not really any different than anywhere else, no ???

[lolagranola]

Seminary is for HS students, BUT, many JrHS here are 7-9th grades. Therefore, many JrHS will have seminary for the 9th graders.

Not ALL the Lds kids attend. And not all seminary students are Lds. My (non-Lds) niece lived with us the year she was in 10 th grade & she took seminary.

FYI, each year in seminary is a different book. One year is th BofM, another is the New Testament, another is the Old....I have no idea what else, D&C maybe?

[Texan in Utah]

In response to your posts:

I have seen Seminary buildings for the junior high schools. In fact, the middle school in my neighborhood has one.

I agree the concentration of LDS people might be less in Sugar House, University, and downtown areas. However, have you seen the amount of grafitti in those areas? And a lot of the houses are small and very old. Draper, South Jordan, and Sandy might have more Mormons, but they are the most attractive communities when managing to stay in Salt Lake County. It is impossible to completely avoid Mormons in Utah.

The reason why I think its wrong driver licenses are scanned into computer systems where the information is saved for three days is the three days part. There is absolutely no reason for your information to be kept more than 24 hours. If someone gets pulled over for speeding and the officer sees they were in a bar two days ago, they could potentially be looked at differently which is unfair. They do not scan your driver license at restaurants, only actual bars.

I agree about the inversions, and thought about it a few hours after my original post. If you are moving to the Salt Lake valley area, you should research inversions because you will experience them.

I suppose some of the malls, movie theaters, and chain restaurants are open on Sundays. If you are not LDS- Sunday is the perfect time to do those things. However, they do get old, so then youre left with outdoor stuff if the weather permits.

I must say the southeast area of Salt Lake County does a really good job taking care of the roads during the snow season.

My husband works for a large corporation and has never experienced any religious issues. I work in insurance agencies and religious conversations are common. My co-workers have learned not to direct the conversations towards me at the current agency I work in. However, I was "laid off" from the first agency shortly after my reaction to being told I wasnt really baptized while I was trying to work and had already asked them to leave me alone.

[CCSLC]

Originally Posted by Texan in Utah

I agree the concentration of LDS people might be less in Sugar House, University, and downtown areas. However, have you seen the amount of grafitti in those areas? And a lot of the houses are small and very old. Draper, South Jordan, and Sandy might have more Mormons, but they are the most attractive communities when managing to stay in Salt Lake County.

Ha! This is hilarious! This is like saying, "I'd like to live in Manhattan because there's more to do there, but the graffiti keeps me away so I'm going to live in Westchester instead." How can you even compare the two?

There's occasional graffiti in those CITY neighborhoods because they're in the CITY, and CITIES are prone to graffiti. There isn't (as much) graffiti in SUBURBAN Salt Lake County because those neighborhoods are boring SUBURBS and SUBURBS are less prone to graffiti. And "attractive" is very subjective. Personally, I think all that cookie-cuttier, McMansion construction in South Jordan, Draper, etc. is absolutely hideous. It's stucco hell with zero personality... give me a 1920s Tudor any day.

Regardless, the graffiti assertion is pretty weak. The better neighborhoods in SLC have significantly less graffiti than what you're claiming. I've never seen graffiti, for instance, in Federal Heights or Yalecrest. And even "graffiti-prone" areas of SLC have much less than any other comparably sized city.