In Our Lovely Deseret

Posted by Braden

The Church is the same in Ohio and in Utah. Being a member of the Church in Ohio is very much different than being a member of the church in Utah!

Shopping at Macey's I heard somebody say behind me, ". . . goes into the MTC on . . . ," and I got really excited! Then I realized I was in Utah and everybody knows somebody who is leaving in or going to be in the MTC soon.

Shopping in Wal-Mart I turned the corner and saw, Whoa! BYU backpacks, notebooks, helmets, paper weights, pencils, lunchboxes, bumper stickers, and pillow cases! For just a second I wondered just how many BYU items I could afford to buy without going over my weekly budget . . . then I realized that I'm in Utah, and those items aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

One day, talking about hometeaching with my roommates, I mentioned how we'd usually do our routes back home on Sundays because the 2.5–3 hour round trip would take up a lot of homework time on a weeknight . . . they then proceeded to tell me how they walked across the street to teach their first family and then went down the road one block to reach their other two.

Looking at Google Maps one night I zoomed out and showed them my stake boundaries. They moved the focus area to their city, zoomed in, and showed me their neighborhood; which was also their stake boundary.

In stake conference of November 2006, we were fortunate enough to hear Elder Henry B. Eyring speak in person! That was the first time I'd ever seen a general authority in person that I can remember. Less than two weeks into my time at BYU, I saw President Uchtdorf, President Packer, and Elder Holland all in the same day, in person, much closer than I'd been able to sit in stake conference.

In short, there are a whole lot of advantages to living where there is such a high concentration of members! More understanding for your beliefs, more merchandise for your school (Go Cougars!), more opportunities to hear the leadership speak in person . . . but there is one negative as well.

In the Midwest, when you meet somebody outside of a church function who is a member, there is an instant bond between you. You've never met him or her before, but you and he or she know that the two of you have a lot more in common at the fundamental level of who you are and what you believe in than probably anybody else around you! In Utah, a large part of that is lost—"You are a member? Yeah, me too. And so is she. And he. And him. And her. And what's that? You live 3 minutes away? Maybe I'll see you at Regional Conference."