Appeared in Homes
Magazine
Of all places to be moved to, I never would have
dreamed that Southern Utah would have been one of them. When my husband
said his company was offering him a promotion, I was elated, but when I
learned it meant we had to move to Utah, I was scared. Why Utah? I had
only been through Utah one time on our way to Colorado so I can’t say I
knew very much about the area, but I knew one thing, Utah was
predominantly Mormons and this frightened me. I didn’t know a lot about
them, but enough to be concerned with raising a family there. My
husband honestly thought I was being paranoid and it upset me that he
wasn’t more concerned. Why was I the only one that was taking this issue
seriously? I wasn’t as concerned for myself as I was our children. They
were at an impressionable age and I was realistic enough to know that
children often fall in line with the ideas of their friends and if their
friends were Mormon, how could I protect them from their strange ideas.
I was taught that this religion and their people were a cult and this
being the case, I was concerned. Ideas of polygamy, prophets and Mormon
bibles were not something I wanted my children exposed to.
After many discussions on the matter we agreed to
visit the area and take a look around. This was December last year so it
was of course beautiful with the snow on the ground and all the
Christmas lights on Main Street. It was very festive and I was attracted
to the simple country feel. Never the less, it wasn’t the landscape that
I was concerned about, it was the people. I kept looking around trying
to determine who was Mormon and who wasn’t. Aside from obvious visual
signs like smoking, I found it difficult to know with any certainty. My
husband was getting upset with my approach. He felt I was being unfairly
critical and accused me of being prejudice. I took offense at the though
of being a bias person and though I tried to defend myself, I knew that
I wasn’t being open minded. It’s hard though; does the Lord really
expect me to be open minded towards a cult? In the end, visiting the
area did make me a little more at ease. I don’t know what I expected,
but for the most part, the people seemed just like any other people that
you would expect to meet in a country town. On the way home my Husband
brought out a few points that I hadn’t considered before. Before
coming, I was concerned with the negative ideas that may influence our
children. What I didn’t consider were the positive influences. Terry
pointed out the lack of gang signs and graffiti and the absence of lewd
billboards. There are many things that can influence our children and
not everything is the result of a friends influence. Society its self
has a way of leaving impressions.
Well, we took the promotion and made the move last
February. Though it hasn’t been without incident, I’m embarrassed at my
earlier feelings. I’ve obviously come to know many friends that are
Mormon and I have learned to admire them for many of their standards.
This isn’t to say that I haven’t run into a few who were less than a
positive impression of their faith, but it’s been good. I realized that
much of what I had been told about this people just wasn’t true. I
suppose there are good and bad in every religion. After all, Jesus was
betrayed by one of his very own disciples. The promotion and our move to
Southern Utah has been very positive for our family. I love the clean
area, the trees, the seasons and genuine hospitality of the people. It
would seem that we all have something to offer and in the end we are all
a better people when we learn to respect each others views and work
towards just being better neighbors regardless of what side of the fence
we are on.
Go
Back |
