This is part 7 of a series. It begins here.
It has been over 6 months since I have last updated my continuing story with the Mormons, so I think it’s about time to add a few more notes.
The past two weeks have been filled with Mormons, the center spotlight of the most popular series on my blog. Since Jayna and Shane have moved to Salt Lake City, they have experienced the heart of Mormon culture firsthand. As it is Christmas break, a time when families come together (out of affection or obligation), the parents, brother, and I made a road trip to the City of the Big Salty Lake.
Since Jayna and Shane had already been living there for a few months, they had encountered some of the strange peculiarities of the Mormon way of life. They had been welcomed, they had been fed. Since they are good citizens, they use the public library, a source that has provided them with the book, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise. Apparently a fascinating read, this book details the history and customs of the religion through an unbiased yet thoroughly inspected view. Dad found the book and didn’t put it down until it was finished.
While I have yet to read the book (my pleasure reading this break is focused on my usual dystopian genre), I was rather amazed to be immersed in the Mormon culture for a week. I first noticed something was different when I heard someone genuinely use the expression “Jeez Louise” in place of a more taboo expletive. Welcome to the world of Mormons.
Aside from being an extremely clean city, the streets and city blocks are ridiculously wide and are numbered up to the tens of thousands, all in relation to the Temple. The people are very friendly and take very good care of their appearance, although they do seem to like natural insulation, I guess to combat the cold winter months. We just bundled up and became bitter:
This is my general way of combating the cold.
As part of our being tourists, we had to take a Temple tour. As soon as we got to Temple Square, it started snowing, so they told us we could wait in the Visitor’s Center and they would come get us in 15 minutes. Punctuality wasn’t their thing, as about 25 minutes later, we were summoned outside, only to meet a mess of confusion, switching tour guides, and be ushered back inside the Visitor’s Center.
I should note, when we mentioned we would like a tour, the lady in the booth had to confirm that we would like one in English. I thought this was strange, but at least she was being nice by making sure the Asians didn’t need another language.
Amazingly, the white, English-speaking tour guides transfered us to the foreign Asian and Oceanic ones. This upset me quite a bit, not necessarily out of racism, but because I feel much less comfortable asking detailed questions to someone who probably won’t understand what I’m saying, much less be able to interpret and provide a reasonable answer. That, and the fact that my increasingly hard-of-hearing parents were going to have a difficult time understanding them. Their lack of punctuality and last-minute change of tour guide set the Mormons back two strikes in my book.
Since anyone willing to attend a tour of the Temple must be interested in Mormonism to some extent, the large portion of the tour consisted of an explanation of the religion with a mild intent to convert. Having had enough experience with the religion to write the entirety of this series, I was bored by their simplified version of the history and theology. With enough Mormon America in us, I think the rest were too. Also, it might have been due to their waining confidence in the language, but it seemed like the two tour guides merely echoed each other instead of adding on.
After the lecturing, we ventured out into the snowstorm, over to the tabernacle. Discourses on the construction and acoustics were moderately enthralling, but the warmth was even more appealing. Actually, I was a little sad the choir didn’t give me a personal performance, but I suppose that was out of the question.
More venturing in the snow led us to the other Visitor’s Center. We were ushered upstairs to stare at a giant, white, ethnically and geographically inaccurate Jesus. More lectures on prophets and translations of the Book of Mormon gave me difficulty keeping my mouth shut, but we politely persevered to the end.
In all, the tour was very clean and well organized, as is every other aspect of the Mormon religion (except, perhaps, their history). I didn’t feel like any particular questions of mine were answered, but new ones were definitely raised. Of course, we were asked to fill out cards with contact information, so I’m eager to see if they will start calling me again. It’s been too long since I’ve heard from them.
The rest of our trip was much less Mormon-filled, the majority satisfied by any sort of human interaction. While their theology is somewhat questionable, I cannot stress the quality of human life the religion produces. Salt Lake City is no doubt a giant city, but it maintains the friendliness, safety, and cleanliness that surpasses nearly every other city I have visited. In all my adventures with the Mormons, I have been amazed at the strange things they believe, but I have always been in awe at the happiness and goodness of those who believe them.
Continue reading here.
