Living in Utah County.....sigh.....it is the usual experience that co-workers assume I am Mormon.

I was reminded of this fact several times this week and my kids had fun over Thanksgiving telling stories about their experience with Mormons who assumed they were Mormon too.

There is an intern in our office who is a young BIC RM (and a large Mormon persecution complex). He is finishing up his BS and applying to various grad programs. I was in a coworker's office when he came in to solicit opinions about the UofU's program. His hesitation is that he has heard there is a definite anti-Mormon bias there and he doesn't think he can hack it. I really don't have an opinion about the program or any bias it might have but I did make a comment that is might be a good thing to get out of the Utah County Mormon bubble and see how other people think. He starred at me. Luckily I had to leave or I might have said more. (And I don't doubt this kid would complain to HR about me creating a hostile work environment (despite that fact that everyone else in our office is Mormon.) I heard my coworker say "you know she isn't Mormon right?"

I was telling another coworker about our weekend hiking to see the petroglyphs. One in particular was of a warrior holding up the head of a defeated enemy. He got very excited about the possibility that it was portrayal of the Shiz (?) story from the Book of Mormon. I laughed and said no that wasn't possible.....wrong time frame, wrong culture, wrong place, etc. He stared at me confused at my admittedly flippant attitude. "You know I'm not Mormon, right?"

One of my daughters told the story of the time she was having dinner at a friends house. She had been friends with this girl since the 2nd grade but the family didn't really know us well as we aren't in the same ward. Anyway, the dinner time conversation was about plans for girls camp. The mom asked DD when/where she was going to girls camp. DD replied that she didn't go to girls camp. Why not? Because I'm not Mormon. Conversation stopped cold and the family starred at her. She still laughs about how this family that had known her for ten+ years tried to wrap their minds around the revelation that she isn't Mormon.

My son told the story of the time he visited Cove Fort on a school field trip. The elderly guide (is that a senior mission?) knew they were all from a school in Utah County and she asked the kids what wards they were from and my son shrugged....I don't know. She argued with him and wouldn't accept the fact that he didn't know what ward he lived in because certainly he was Mormon and every Mormon knows his ward. He said, well I'm not Mormon. She still refused to believe him (thinking he was being a smart a**?). Finally, one of the other kids spoke up....no really, he isn't Mormon.

Then my older DD told about the time in HS when a boy asked her on a date. He called later that night to call the date off because he just found out she wasn't Mormon. I just assumed you're Mormon because you're so nice, he explained.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2017 09:10PM by caedmon.

The farce is strong in Utah County

See you all in May!!!

Glad I don't live there.

Never lived there but have heard others tell of emoployment difficulties, loneliness and the repeated hostility- the best word I can use- by LDS teachers in the classroom towards non/LDS kids, dating issues mentioned above, making athletic and cheerleading squads- you name it. Being and adult is hard but being a child/teenager is worse....being ignored, left out and ostracized is painful

Gatorman

It is also morally and ethically wrong and Bigoted. It is taught from an early age and upheld by the parents.

During my junior year in high school the spring semester was spent in Ogden, Utah at one of its local high schools.

I was LDS. From Idaho. Idaho Mormon culture is (or was at that time,) markedly different from Utah Mormon culture. I felt like a fish out of water among those high school kids.

My best friend was a transplant that same year from San Jose, CA. She felt the same as I did, and came from a wealthy Mormon family. Her parents were divorced, so she moved to live with her dad and stepmom in Ogden.

I was living in Ogden with my mom recently following my parents divorce.

Perhaps being children from divorced homes put us at odds immediately among the Mormon kids at high school. We were outsiders, and not made to feel welcome.

We might as well have been not Mormon for all the good being Mormon did us.

She moved back to San Jose following that year. I ended up moving to Palo Alto to finish out high school there. Yet we only managed to see each other one time following my move to Palo Alto. After our move to California we might as well have been worlds apart.

At our California high schools we were not treated as different. My friend became homecoming queen that year in her high school. I stood out in the areas that interested me the most. We were not only accepted, but were achievers in the California school system.

In Utah it was all about how Mormony you were. How blonde the girls (and guys) could bleach their hair the most. Mormon cliques made up the student body at our high school. No wonder we did things by ourselves a lot, hanging out together and playing hooky together when we could. We had a blast! They were some of the funnest times I remember living in Ogden, or anywhere for that matter. We had fun whatever we did.

She and I were like soul sisters. I knew when we met in health class that we'd known each other in a previous lifetime. It was that deja vu feeling some people get when meeting someone for the first time. It felt as though we were picking up from where we left off in a prior existence.

She died at 48 from breast cancer. After I spoke with her father and learned about her passing I had the strangest dream that she came for me to go on one of our adventures together again, only this time it would be where she was in heaven.

I declined her offer, afraid I might not return to my body once our adventure was over. She was in heaven, and I wasn't ready to join her there.

The University of Utah was founded by Brigham Young. It is not "anti-mormon". It's also not rabidly mormon like BYU. Mormons, especially Utah County mormons, think that anyone with a different opinion than 100% pro-mormon, is an "anti-mormon". That's why many that leave Utah County eventually return. They can't function outside of the Utah County bubble. Even in other places in Utah, they can't handle it. Never mind trying to cope in LA, Denver, Dallas, etc. It should be a medically recognized psychological disorder.

StillAnon Wrote:
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> That's why many that leave Utah County eventually return.

Meanwhile, the attitudes and behavior of fanatical Mormons drive away the saner residents of Utah County, leaving the place with a higher concentration of fanatical bubble dwellers, which drives away even more of the sane people. And so on.

You're right. It's a perpetual cycle that gets worse. I've been fortunate enough to have traveled to 6 continents (never been to Antarctica-yet), and many countries. I've never seen such a strange, tribal place as Orem/Provo. Mormons, especially 3-5 generational Utah County mormons, don't have the skills to cope in areas that they are not an overwhelming majority. National Geographic should conduct a study there.

It's also how the church in general has become more insane.

caedmon Wrote:
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I just assumed you're
> Mormon because you're so nice, he explained.


Because only Mormons are nice people! *Eye-roll*

They are mean spirited bigots but oh so such nice people.

People think i am a believer still as well where ever go. It's actually easier to pretend that i am a believer around mormons i have learned. It is crazy to compare their brainwashed mind compared to more increasingly healing and healthier mind in my opinion.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2017 05:00PM by Soft Machine.