And when I say eastern state, I mean the states on the eastern part of the United States, not eastern Utah. It never failed, from home teaching to scheduling meetings, and seminary, these guys just did not understand that things outside of Utah did not work like they did in Utah. I remember my father mocking one individual by asking how they did things in Nashville, since Nashville was west of us, so they must be more correct.

Of course the church was just as full of crap in the east as it is in the west, but it was just so aggravating.

I live in SE Texas, where is is extremely hot and humid most of the time. Summer here is like a slice of hell and most of us avoid doing activities outside in the summer unless they involve water...well, I noticed [when I attended TSCC] that sometimes there would be a church picnic scheduled in July or August. It never failed that it was someone from UTAH who hadn't lived here too long. Idiots.

Here in FL, we don't care much about how you did it behind the Zion current.

I finally started saying what had been in the front of my mind for years:

"Then why don't you go back where you facking came from and continue doing it that way." (statement, not question)

Worked every time.

My favorite story was how the church used the same roof design on its eastern buildings as it did it's Utah buildings, for several decades. Problem was we had slightly more rain then they did, and roofs were always leaking, or caving in. The brethren had to spend a lot of money to fix the problem, once they finally figured it out.

My Dad informed me of that one once. He told me that since they were "the Lord's engineers," they thought they could build them exactly like they do in Utah.

forbiddencokedrinker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My favorite story was how the church used the same
> roof design on its eastern buildings as it did
> it's Utah buildings, for several decades. Problem
> was we had slightly more rain then they did, and
> roofs were always leaking, or caving in. The
> brethren had to spend a lot of money to fix the
> problem, once they finally figured it out.

In N. Seattle, the building that used to be called 8/10 ward (my mission from), they had a flat 'built up' roof.

Seattle has a lot of freeze/thaw in our winters, that roof on that building was 'always' leaking because of a LOUSY design.

At the Seattle First ward, the building was largely paid by members renting rooms/couches during the World's Fair ('62); SL recommended landscaping that was 100% inappropriate...

yet the members still gave SL allegiance/loyalty, as if EVERYTHING was divinely inspired, down to the closets, the color theme of the furnishings, etc.

go figure

The influx of Utah Mormons into our ward here in the DC area (which began in earnest with the tech boom in the mid-90s) has ruined the character of the congregation. The ward used to be very much more like an extended family. Sure, there were jerks and it's not like everyone got along, but there was a compassion that is completely missing now. As more Utah folks moved in, the colder and less friendly it became.

You just described what's happened to the church over the last 30 years.

I used to drive by it all the time wondering what the hell it was!! :)

The morgbots must think it is sooo spechul!

My cousin from the promised land asks us stupid things like "Do you have (insert name of large retail store) where you live"?

Yes, not only are there 65,000 of those nationwide, in the state of California alone we have 25,000 of them.

The mindset is so interesting to me because I never lived in Utah and experienced that provincial way of thinking. It really gives you insight into how secluded and how small (mentally) their way of thinking is. They almost can't fathom that there is life outside of Utah and outside of the Mormon church.

LOL! True, that!

The only proof they have is when someone leaves on a 2 year mission and then goes home. Afterward they can't recall anything about the other place at all, but that is because they were so brainwashed.

I always got a kick out of folks in Utah Valley referring to Denver as "back east".

I attended a branch in Norway, and the local members/leaders would defer to those members who were from the U.S., especially if they were from Utah. These U.S. members would be missionaries or those who were working for local U.S. companies. The sense was that these foreign visitors "knew better" how things should be. I thouht that this attitude undermined the local leaders and members, and placed them in a 'lower status.'

Did they sing this song all the time... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnIvvOmikko

When I was in D.C. visiting friends about a month ago the topic of east vs west came up constantly. The people I met were weirdly interested in how we do things out west and were fascinated that I could afford a house.

I used to live back east in a university town.

Every summer there would be visitors from Utah. They loved to show up and show us how things should really be done.

One sunday a guy got up and told us he was going to teach us how to really sing. He took over the choristers spot. He got up there and yelled and hollered. He waved his arms around like a crazy man while demanding that we all sing at the top of our lungs.

The entire congregation started laughing and couldn't stop. He sat down disgusted making the comment that we were an abomination.

After church I heard some kids laughing and calling each other an ABOMINATION. It was hilarious.

I don't think mr singing man ever visited our ward again.

I remember experiencing the Utah expat smugness in our ward in Northern California. It was also exhibited by visiting church authorities who would occasionally grace our sacrement meetings with their royal presence//. They seemed to assume that all of us would much rather be in Utah and must consider it the apex of human civilization.

Yes! That happened all the time here in Florida. And the worst of it was that those Utah move-ins were given all the primo leadership positions automatically. I'll never forget the time some young family moved here from out west - dude was barely off his mission and still wet behind the ears - and in less than a year, he was called as BISHOP of the ward!! WTF? He looked like he was in H.S.

The other thing that bugged me were the Utah Mormon mommies. One day a bunch of us took our pre-schoolers to the beach. It was one of those glorious blue-sky, white sand, ocean-stretching-out-forever days. Babies splashing, wind caressing, gulls squawking.

Paradise, right? Nope.

All the Mormon mommies could talk about was how homesick they were for the mountains and how they were always getting lost driving around the city because they couldn't use the mountains as a landmark for direction. Even better, some of the mommies vacationed in California frequently where the ocean is to the WEST. Our ocean is EAST. Apparently that further confused the young ladies and screwed up their sense of direction. (Insert visual of van loads of blonde-haired, bubble-headed ditzes driving aimlessly through the streets of our city, with hoardes of equally blond toddlers in tow).

<facepalm>

;o)

ROTFLMFAO!!! OK, I got that visual.

I'm now forced to admit that when I moved coast to coast the ocean-direction thing sunk me a few times too. LOL!

Big mountains to the east, little mountains to the west, complete with a grid system to tie it all together. I imagine it would be pretty tough to leave that behind and go by the typical winding streets with names if you've spent your whole life in Utah. GPS devices in vehicles and Google Maps should solve part of that problem though.

During my 10 months as a convert, I think my worst impression of mormons was from the MP's wife who would wax poetic about the wonders of BYU and living in Zion. But she reassured everyone God needed her and her family to live in "the mission field" for a period of time, even though everything here was sub par, especially the schools.

I grew up in Northern California, moved to the Midwest after marriage and then to UofUtah for ex-husband's school. During the RSP's welcome visit, she asked me: "What's it like out there?" - meaning the Midwest. She'd never been east of Park City or west of Tooele. My jaw dropped to the floor. This was in the mid-1970s. She was completely serious!

I wouldn't say it was just the Eastern U.S. Even in S. California we would sometimes have some Utahns move in and try to take over. It never worked. I lived in an older and wealthy beach ward of doctors, dentists, and engineers and they did not take kindly to Utahns telling them what to do. Our primary and youth programs were very small and just did not fit into a lot of things the Utah families wanted to do.

What sticks out in my mind right now is when a new Utah family moved in and lobbied to get rid of the ward annual Halloween party because it was evil, but if we must do something we should do trunk or treating. The ward loved its Halloween party. This was the first I had ever heard of trunk or treating. Well the ward still had our halloween party and the primary did a trunk or treating. Everyone who went, I was a YW and had to pass out candy at a car, agreed that this was extremely stupid and it wasn't done again.

Was there something unique about the brand of Utah mormonism that resulted in the behavior discussed above?

"In the mission field" or being "From Zion" I heard those all the time on my mission in the DC area in the early 70's.
There were lots of Utah families in the beltway wards but as you got further out from the metropolitin area the wards and branches were mostly converts. Awsome people.
Then when they started the Utah mission some of the air went out of thier "Zion" bubble.

I've known wards in 3 different parts of Europe where there would be three big factions vying for influence: Rocky Mountain folk (UT/ID/AZ), West Coast folk (mostly CA) and immigrants (Africa and/or Latin America). Every meeting would involve discussions on how things were done in Zion/Southern California/Ecuador/Nigeria/Chile/Philippines. I know a ward that hasn't had a European bishop since the 1990s: first a Venezuelan, then a Californian, then an Argentinean.

I think it says a lot about what a regional phenomenon TSCC really is if around the world, so many of its active members are from the western USA. The other members rarely lasted more than three years.

Hello?! I was in TN and a good little mo from the early 70s to early 80s. The backbone of my ward were people from the west because they were the ones who knew the hymns, theology, and how things were to be done. I'd never heard of relief society; luckily many of the older women from Utah were there to lead us. We tried to be as much like Utah as possible. Utah was just an inch away from heaven and many young people dreamed of moving there permanently.