Living in Utah

[Rifka]

I really relate to the asker of question #65232, since I am from Utah.

I've always thought Utah was a great place to grow up. It's a beautiful area, people are nice, you don't have to smell smoke every time you walk down the street, etc. And Genuine Article, I never noticed people being more lax because there was such a high concentration of members. If anything I think it made the general standards higher. When I got invited to parties with friends, I never had to worry about whether there would be alcohol or drugs there. It was always good, clean fun. There's always the few who rebel or are lax, but you get that anywhere you are, predominantly LDS or not. I just don't get why being surrounded by people who share your beliefs and values is such a bad thing. (I do understand wanting to move somewhere where the church really needs strengthening, though. Serving a mission really helped me to see how much some areas of the church need strengthening. That's the one anti-Utah argument I've heard that I can really agree with.)

I also don't see what's wrong with school and church overlapping. Why is it a problem if your depressed band-mate is the person who passes the sacrament to you? Why shouldn't kids have to deal with that? No offense, Genuine Article, but saying they shouldn't have to deal with that sounds like you're saying they shouldn't have to deal with reality. Members of the church aren't any more perfect than anyone else so why do you want to pretend they are? Your Laurel president in Wisconsin could just as easily be a secret cutter, and the person who passes you the sacrament in Oregon could just as easily be depressed as the people who do those things in Utah. If anything, I think it would be helpful that those people are members because then if they come to you and want help, you can refer to the gospel as the ultimate source of healing.

I hope that didn't come off as attacking you, Genuine Article. I really wasn't intending to. I just feel strongly about this subject, and I wish you wouldn't stereotype Utah. You don't have to want to live here, but stereotyping is never helpful.

I feel like people who aren't from Utah often misjudge Utah. Especially when they judge it based off of BYU culture. I'm not saying that's what you were doing, Genuine Article, (although I'm curious to know if you have actually lived in Utah, other than in the BYU bubble). I'm just saying that often when people complain about or have a thing against Utah, they haven't actually lived in Utah. Utah culture is very different than BYU culture and it bugs me when people confuse the two. To be honest, I think many people who dislike Utah do so because it is different than what they are used to, not necessarily because Utah really fits under all their stereotypes. Many of the things people say they dislike about Utah could be found in any other place-- people just like to use them as excuses to dislike something that is different than what they are used to.

Finally, I'm curious what people who don't want to live in Utah because they don't like living around so many members think the celestial kingdom will be like. Don't get me wrong-- I am not at all comparing Utah to the Celestial kingdom. Utah is full of imperfect people, just like anywhere else. But, I wonder if people don't like being surrounded by Mormons now, how will they survive when/if they get to the Celestial Kingdom where everyone is a member?

[Whistler]

I've been living in Utah for over seven years. Granted, only about two of those years were outside the "BYU bubble," but I admit that I don't think Utah is my ideal location. I really dislike the weather. I've had a hard time making friends out here in Spanish Fork. Maybe some of that is transitioning into a family ward, but I feel like since everyone here is LDS and their families are here too, it makes it really difficult to make new friends. In a smaller ward where it's less common to be LDS, your religion can be something you have in common, but in Utah it's a given. I think part of LDS culture influences Utah culture, and there are some things I don't like about that. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly, but sometimes it feels like if I don't fit to the cultural expectations, I'm a bad Mormon. As much as I know that's not true, it's still something I feel.

That said, I know there are people I could be friends with in Utah, even if they aren't in my ward. I think there are some great things to be said for growing a garden (even if I'm too lazy to do it) and the culture of industriousness. I feel pride in knowing how to bake bread and knowing my mother and grandmother often bake their own bread (I don't know why? I use a bread maker now?). Same goes for like... canning and packing lunches and things. But of course I prefer how I grew up--isn't it human nature to prefer what we know?

And... I don't think living in another state/place on a mission is quite the same as living there normally, but I guess it gives you a taste of what other wards are like.

[Craig Jessop]

Genuine Article wrote the response you didn't like. And I agree with you. I'm from AZ, but Utah has completely grown on me recently. I love the mountains, the cold, that I can talk about President Monson and everybody knows who he is, that I can go to General Conference every six months, and that I can go hiking fifteen minutes from my house.

I also believe that it is just as hard to be valiant in Utah, but for different reasons: how many RMs do you know who don't do their home teaching? How many girls who push the modesty line? How many families don't have scripture study or attend the temple? As a temple worker, I've been taking an (extremely scientific) poll of young, unmarried RMs and it seems that about 70% who come in have been home fewer than six months. You get adjusted and you get more lukewarm, which is good to an extent. You can't be That Obnoxious Kid in Sunday School forever, but you still can do your home teaching and read the scriptures and pray and go to the temple in the right spirit.

In Utah you see so many people just piddling along in the Gospel that it is so much easier to justify being lukewarm because your roommates or your neighbors are too, and you don't want to be considered a goodie good. Elsewhere I think you have to choose to be completely committed, or you eventually give in to the world.

So yeah, I have no problem living in Utah County. You don't have as much exposure to hard sin, but you do have much more exposure to complacency, which is, in my opinion, far more dangerous because it's hard to recognize. But it's just as likely to disqualify you from heaven, if not more so.

[Defy V]

You know, it's interesting that we say it's easier to be complacent in Utah. I usually feel that way as well, but I had a visiting teacher who felt differently. She was from California and had very few members in her high school. As a result, she stood out simply because she didn't smoke or drink or party. But once she came to BYU, she suddenly felt like that was no longer "good enough." Now to be righteous, you had to do things like read scriptures more fervently and wear even more modest clothing. So, I think that there may be complacency, but there may also be an elevation of standards here which people may not be comfortable with or used to.
(And by standards, I may be referring more to cultural standards than gospel standards.)

[Yarjka]

I was born and raised in Provo. There are good and bad aspects to the culture. A bad aspect is the highly segregated division of society based on ward boundaries. I knew the names of everyone on my street and on the street behind ours and all the way south to the juvenile detention center, but I can't name a single person who lived on the street one block north of ours. Another thing I hate is how so many people turn a blind eye to the actual problems in Provo (drugs are quite common, homelessness is a visible presence, and there are some really poor neighborhoods) so they can pretend they live in a perfect bubble where they always feel the spirit. People don't talk about their problems because they don't want to be branded as the 'bad' Mormons. And that branding is a real problem. After my parents' divorce and church discipline, my family was the 'bad' family, despite my father having served as scoutmaster for many years and being generally looked up to in leadership positions and my mom having served as Relief Society president. All of a sudden none of that matters--the neighbors won't let their kids come over to our house to play anymore and since they don't like feeling uncomfortable around you they just stop talking to you at all resulting in ostracism.

While I think it's inevitable that there will be depressive cutters in church no matter where you are, I agree that the cross-over between church and school is a problematic one, particularly when it comes to bullying. I get the sense from my friends who grew up outside of Utah, that church was a place where you always feel safe, where you all have something in common, so you are friends despite differences in taste and hobbies. In Utah, at least in the ward I grew up in, the school bullies were in the same ward with you, and they continued to be jerks at church activities. The deacons were picked on by priests, and the 'cool' deacons had to ramp up their bullying of fellow deacons to make up for it. It's problematic because the same kid you saw beating someone up in the locker room at school and swearing up a storm is blessing the sacrament the next day. It really makes for a non-spiritual environment.

There are plenty of good things, too, though. Lots of easily-accessible church activities, close proximity to temples, generally safe community, etc. And for me, it will always feel like home.

[TheBlackSheep]

I grew up in Vegas, and while Vegas isn't my favorite place (suburban hell), I've always given Utah a really, really hard time.

Then I moved to Salt Lake County and worked downtown. I could live here forever. I would rather die than move back to Provo (or, I imagine, most anywhere else in the state), but the Salt Lake area is fantastic.

[Architect]

I was going to write an answer to this, but I wouldn't have finished it for a week and it would have kept the question from posting.

I feel like Utah is in many ways a great place to live. Nice people, reasonably decent schools, lots of entertainment options, beautiful scenery/outdoors activities, and more. I feel like living around a lot of members of the church is a good thing; why wouldn't you want to live around them? And in regards to the whole church/school combination, I sometimes felt like the teenagers I grew up with in church were very clique-ish, and most of them weren't people I was around at school. At the same time, I had great friends from school, both members and not, that were never like that in any way. So I think there are every kind of person in every group. (I grew up in WA.)

At the same time, I really don't see myself living in Utah permanently. For these reasons: Currently my family lives North and West of here. I really love the Pacific Northwest and would love to end up there permanently. I really don't like the cold, dry winters - it messes with my skin and I just don't like it. (If you're from Alaska, please forgive me.) Traffic and construction is pretty bad for how few people really live around here, especially in the Provo/Orem area.

But, I won't rule it out for good. It's really not a bad place to be, and if it ends up being the best place for me and my future family, I will be happy with it.

[Katya]

I'm always amused at people who say that Utah is a terrible, terrible place to live and then turn around and say that all the Mormons who live in Utah are lazy and complacent. Maybe, just maybe the things that non-Utahns think are so terrible are also hard on the people who grew up here, meaning that Utahns are less lazy and complacent than you might think. And maybe, just maybe, there are things about living outside of Utah (or outside of the "Mormon corridor") that are "easy" compared to living in Utah (and maybe non-Utahns are blind to them).

[Genuine Article]

As someone who grew up in the northwest, I find it hard to live in Utah because everything is different from how I think it should be. It's opposite land, where instead of non-members there are Mormons everywhere, and instead of trees lining the freeway there's an endless supply of orange cones. When I first moved to Utah, having mountains so close actually freaked me out. I'd look up and get hit in the face with them, they were everywhere all at once, looming over me.
It is hard for me to live and be happy in a place that is so different from what I consider to be normal. I never moved as a kid, I do not like to travel, and when I picture my future it is in the northwest, because that is the climate I am built for. I feel like I spent all my time in Utah coping - coping with the heat, the snow, the lack of trees, the construction, the sheer sunniness of it all, coping until I could get back to the northwest. So I don't doubt that Utah is the right place for some people, but I am not one of those people, and it really has nothing to do with social ills or how the Church functions in dense Mormon populations. Utah is simply the opposite of what my heart recognizes as home.

[TheAnswerIs42]

I've been reading these posts and thinking about this for a day or so here. For me, I personally liked growing up in Ohio. I think the experience of being just about the only member of the church in my school was a great thing for me. While I did feel a bond with the other youth at church, as many mentioned, the particular youth my age were sorta flakes and I often felt like the odd one out, so it wasn't as good for me.
I do like how having my ward be my neighborhood here in Utah means that I know a LOT of my neighbors. I might not know the people on the east side of my house, as they aren't in my ward, but even just knowing a lot of people in surrounding houses is really a great thing. I didn't have that growing up - I only knew the kids I met at school and then found out they lived in my subdivision, not the other way around.
I noticed that growing up without strong church support everywhere you look had a polarizing effect on the youth - you either became strong from having to stand up for what you believe, or you ditched the church from peer pressure. I didn't see a lot of middle ground possible. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on if you/your children decided to stand strong or drift off. Some people would have been better off if they could just drift with a Mormon crowd until they were ready to be strong, perhaps.

The thing is, as Genuine pointed out, people grow up with one thing and tend to have strong feelings about it. People from Utah feel strongly this is the best for everyone, others prefer their childhood elsewhere. I think most of us can admit that many of those feelings are irrational, because we should be able to make do anywhere, but that's still the way we feel. And that's a valid thing - as long as you don't let clinging onto it even when you can't have it dictate your happiness.

For me, I want to get out of Utah because I grew up with my immediate family alone and got used to the idea that being separate was part of being an adult with your own family. My husband grew up with his grandparents in a 3 mile radius from his house - mine were 5-20 hour drive away. To him, staying close to family is important, and to me, I just want to get out on my own more. We've let the job situation dictate how that discussion ends, and right now he has a better job than we could dream of, so we're here. And while I've ranted before about having issues from it all, in general, I don't let it affect me. (Thankfully I have been able to maintain a lot of distance lately, and that has really helped.)

So, yeah, for me the issue isn't "how many members of the church are there", but "how many in-laws am I bombarded with while thousands of miles from my own family". But I'm probably alone in that.

[Dead Cat]

I really don't like the cold, dry winters - it messes with my skin and I just don't like it. (If you're from Alaska, please forgive me.)

Nothing to forgive: cold is not fun.

[Katya]

People from Utah feel strongly this is the best for everyone . . .

Not necessarily. There are a lot of things I've enjoyed about living outside of Utah and I can easily see how others could prefer it. (I would prefer it, myself, if I had friends out here.) I just get tired of the Utah Mormon stereotyping and Utah-bashing that goes on in Mormon culture.

[Rifka]

People from Utah feel strongly this is the best for everyone . . .

Not necessarily. There are a lot of things I've enjoyed about living outside of Utah and I can easily see how others could prefer it. (I would prefer it, myself, if I had friends out here.) I just get tired of the Utah Mormon stereotyping and Utah-bashing that goes on in Mormon culture.

I agree completely with Katya. I've never felt like Utah was the best place for everyone else to be. I love it, but I understand that it's not for everyone. I just also hate all the Utah bashing and stereotyping that goes on (especially when people do it right in front of me-- at least have the decency to wait until I'm out of earshot, please!) Along those lines, I especially hate it when people choose to come to BYU, when there are thousands of others who would love to come here, and then they spend the whole time whining about how much they hate Utah. For Pete's sake, if you hate Utah that much, go to school somewhere else!

This thread has been nice, though, because I haven't felt like I've encountered nearly as much of the stereotyping and Utah-bashing. I've enjoyed hearing some thoughtful discussion of the matter for a change.

[Katya]

People from Utah feel strongly this is the best for everyone . . .

Not necessarily. There are a lot of things I've enjoyed about living outside of Utah and I can easily see how others could prefer it. (I would prefer it, myself, if I had friends out here.) I just get tired of the Utah Mormon stereotyping and Utah-bashing that goes on in Mormon culture.

I agree completely with Katya. I've never felt like Utah was the best place for everyone else to be. I love it, but I understand that it's not for everyone. I just also hate all the Utah bashing and stereotyping that goes on (especially when people do it right in front of me-- at least have the decency to wait until I'm out of earshot, please!)

Or when people bash Utah Mormons in front of you, but then they catch themselves and say that obviously you are some sort of amazing exception. (Or maybe your stereotypes are wrong?)

Along those lines, I especially hate it when people choose to come to BYU, when there are thousands of others who would love to come here, and then they spend the whole time whining about how much they hate Utah. For Pete's sake, if you hate Utah that much, go to school somewhere else!

After moving out of state for grad school, I'm a bit more sympathetic to feeling homesick while at college. That said, I do think that homesickness (and not the fact that Utah is genuinely a terrible place) is really the source of misery for most BYU students. When I was at UIUC, it was all the Chicago kids complaining about how terrible Champaign-Urbana was. Here in Maine, it's probably the Portland kids who are bellyaching. But BYU students get to blame everything they're feeling on Utah culture.

[Portia]

I love Utah: the downtown coffeeshops, the skiing, the coworkers who actually are my friends, the sports rivalries, how people's moms serve you cake when you go over to their homes, the gay community protesting in the Main Street Plaza, Jon Huntsman, the Gothic gorgeousness of the temple, the history, my family and best friends. Now that H&M and Crate & Barrel are coming to Fashion Place, my joy is complete. I am not fond of either the pollution (everyone drives here, even to get groceries one block away!) or the subdivisions, but it's not like you can't find those in any mid-size city in the U.S. My other two favorite places are the Central CA Coast and west Paris, but an extravagantly rich uncle would have to die and name me as his sole inheritor to afford either. ; )

And I know that I'm certainly not the only "less-active" Mormon to prefer Utah to all other places (we have been a tradition since 1847, quite frankly, back when apostles were exed all the time) and that plenty of Mormons much prefer other climes.

[Portia]

Genuine Article's response was very interesting, because it describes my experience living in the Northwest, pretty much in reverse! The rain . . . lying there wide awake night after night, month after month, the never ending bloody rain which was like the set of Blade Runner! Almost laughably incessant! Nothing but trees, trees, trees everywhere . . . miles and miles of no houses or libraries but just freaking spruces! The horrible 5-hour winter days and the sun setting at 11 and being up at 4 in the summer (on the days it came out, especially this year). The surly clerks, the jaded coworkers, the ugly men tap-tap-tapping away in ugly coffeeshops oblivious to the world around them . . . oh how I yearned for just one tall, blonde, flirtatious Utah boy, frat boy though he may be!

The traffic! You just sit there, and sit, and sit . . . the conspicuous consumption juxtaposed right against legit mental guys who walk up to you with their boozy breath and quote verses from Revelations . . .

I'm an earnest, cheerful, somewhat dorky person who is very talkative, wears bright colors, and loves going on long walks outside year-round. The Northwest reduced me to an agoraphobic, nocturnal depressive. There aren't many things in this world that I won't chin up and give the ol' college try, but man, that S.A.D. and the "Seattle Freeze" stuff is real! I think Death Cab perfectly captures the Northwestiness of it all in Transatlanticism (the album).

[NerdGirl]

I actually loved living in Utah as a liberal and somewhat unorthodox Mormon. There's a much higher concentration of Mormons like me in Utah than there is anywhere else. I don't want to live in Utah for the rest of my live, but that's not because I hate Utah. I would just kind of rather live in the same country as my family.

[Katya]

I actually loved living in Utah as a liberal and somewhat unorthodox Mormon. There's a much higher concentration of Mormons like me in Utah than there is anywhere else.

It's true. Almost all of my liberal / democrat / feminist / unorthodox Mormon friends are from Utah or I at least met them in Utah.

[Marduk]

Ooooh! Do I count as any of those Katya?

[Katya]

Ooooh! Do I count as any of those Katya?

You are ALL of them! (And maybe someday we'll even meet in real life . . .)