You were borned and bred in deepest Mormondom. You served a mission or went to school in America or Canada, in someplace profoundly "Gentile". Compare/contrast the experiences.

[flameburns623]

Yes I am aware it's long out of style to reference non-LDS as "Gentiles".

I know that I experienced a culture shock going from a very conservative and traditional Catholic parish to a military chapel infused with "the Spirit of Vatican II".

I'm reading Missionary blogs and clearly some of the small-town Utahns and Idahoans find aspects of St Louis to be a tad alien 👽.

Like barbecued pork butts for Memorial Day, and "Which high school didja go to"?

And realizing they are serving in an area that thinks Mormons are polygamous Amish, a place where many people have maybe heard of Mormons but are surprised to meet one in real life. 

Did others have similar experiences? Cultural dissonance that wasn't really expected, given that this is America after all?

This is a just-for-fun thread, don't think it has to get real deep or profound.

Edited March 18, 2016 by flameburns623
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[Okrahomer]

In deepest Mormondom it's actually "barn"---as in "I was barn in Spanish Fark..."  :)

[mnn727]

My experience is the opposite, I was born and live in the 'Real World" and am astounded when I have traveled to Utah. I can't image living among all those Mormons.

[The Nehor]

I went to England and Wales. Bit of a culture shock but went well.

You may want to read over your thread titles first in future. I winced. One mistake is understandable but by the third it was painful.

[Okrahomer]

I had two "culture" shocks serving in Germany:

1.  The first shock was getting my mind around the fact that most people thought we were oddballs:  young men and women talking about religion all day long, everyday.

2.  The second shock was Blutwurst.  Yeeuck!!

[Robert F. Smith]

I was born and raised a California Mormon, and considered Utah a backwater, where people were poorly educated and out of touch, even if they were nice, and even if my mother came from there.

My culture shock came with my years living, not with Gentiles, but among the Jews in the Holy Land.  Really opened my eyes, including the fact that one of my roommates was a guy from Montreal preparing for the Catholic priesthood.  The whole experience was tremendously valuable.

[Tacenda]

3 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I was born and raised a California Mormon, and considered Utah a backwater, where people were poorly educated and out of touch, even if they were nice, and even if my mother came from there.

My culture shock came with my years living, not with Gentiles, but among the Jews in the Holy Land.  Really opened my eyes, including the fact that one of my roommates was a guy from Montreal preparing for the Catholic priesthood.  The whole experience was tremendously valuable.

So your point?  Are we, Utah  Mormons, backwards or not?

[Wanderer7]

I grew up in southern Utah and served in Texas. I thought a barbecue meant hamburgers, hot dogs, and jello salad. I had no idea what "brisket" referred to.

[mfbukowski]

22 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

So your point?  Are we, Utah  Mormons, backwards or not?

Of course!

Is there any question?

 

(Sorry- the devil made me say that.  It was just too tempting!)  

[bluebell]

54 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

My experience is the opposite, I was born and live in the 'Real World" and am astounded when I have traveled to Utah. I can't image living among all those Mormons.

I was a little worried when we moved to Utah, but (at least in Layton) it's not really different than anywhere else i've lived.  Other than that my ward is my neighborhood and the city council prayer definitely sounded LDS, I can't think of anything that's been different.

[Duncan]

I ask this question to the missionaries from Utah and Idaho all the time and yeah going from St.George to Dauphin or Gull Lake is a stretch but the 3 sisters here now say they love it, seeing how other people do things and live life and what place the gospel can have and not just the Church. I think that's the common reaction is seeing a diff. between being immersed in church culture to living the gospel when there is no LDS church culture-not saying we are better but they see a contrast as church vs. gospel

[gopher]

58 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

My experience is the opposite, I was born and live in the 'Real World" and am astounded when I have traveled to Utah. I can't image living among all those Mormons.

Same.  It was a shock living in Provo for 8 months after growing up on the east coast.  But after years of making fun of Utah for being, well, Utah, I really enjoyed my time there.  It was strange not knowing all the active Mormons in the city.

But the only time in my life my car has been broken into and robbed was when I was Provo.

[bcuzbcuz]

I was born and raised in Canada. My mother moved to Utah when I was 16. I was shocked to my very core when I heard the Bishop´s son talking with friends about their "wet" weekend, beer and throwing up and groping their dates. Same topics from where I grew up by other kids, but this time it was fellow Mormons saying the same things about their weekend adventures. Utah wasn´t the "Garden of Eden" I expected.

[Ahab]

2 hours ago, mnn727 said:

My experience is the opposite, I was born and live in the 'Real World" and am astounded when I have traveled to Utah. I can't image living among all those Mormons.

I can imagine it and I wouldn't want to.

I prefer the Church without the high fallutin "Mormon culture".

Give me plain country folk who are pretty much like regular rural country guys and gals EXCEPT WITHOUT the beer and liquor and cigarettes and cigars and coffee and tea and... well, no drugs of any kind really unless needed for medicinal purposes.  Like maybe the Baldwin sister's recipe from their Papa which they regard as more of just an elixir. 

And shoes and boots, too.  Gotta have those.

And pick up trucks. And hay. And blue jeans.

[Keq82]

3 hours ago, mnn727 said:

My experience is the opposite, I was born and live in the 'Real World" and am astounded when I have traveled to Utah. I can't image living among all those Mormons.

I completly agree with you.  I was raised in Washington and currently live in Oregon.  Most of my friends (even growing up) were not LDS.  I consider Utah a bubble--completely ignorant, in a lot of ways, to the rest of the world.  However, a lot of really good people live in Utah, it's just a different culture.  

Edited March 18, 2016 by Keq82

[Tacenda]

These comments beg the question as to why Utahans are bubbleheads.  If most are LDS this doesn't paint a good picture of Zion.  I'm a Utah native, I always wonder if I'll ever get out of Dodge.  The only way would have been an LDS mission in my senior years.  But I guess that won't likely happen now.  This is very depressing to me.  

Edited March 18, 2016 by Tacenda

[flameburns623]

Among the oddities of St. Louis is that unlike what is seen in other cities on TV, where streetwalking prostitutes are gaudy and dressed-out: in St. Louis they tend to dress DOWN and are difficult to spor. They are often dressed a bit dowdy, actually.

To the chagrin of one pair of missionaries who offered to share the gospel with a woman who made a counter-offer to "share". The missionary blog reflected that the author was aghast but he needn't have been. Natives get blindsided too.

Imo's Pizza, Gooey Butter Cake, and Ted Drewe's ice cream, along with those barbequed pork butts I mentioned earlier are some of the delicious gut-busting St. Louis favorites.

The "What high school did you graduate?" gets talked to death but it' s purpose is to pigeonhole someone pretty closely: the school subtly reveals which neighborhood someone grew uo in, and thereby their economic status and social caste; often, someone's religion, and other details.

We get allergens from three directions, so many missionaries complain of having troubles they never had at home.

Edited March 19, 2016 by flameburns623
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[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

These comments begs the question as to why Utahans are so inept.  If most are LDS this doesn't paint a good picture of Zion.  I'm a born and bred Utah native.  I always wonder if I'll ever get out of Dodge.  The only way would have been an LDS mission in my senior years.  But I guess that won't likely happen now.  This is very depressing to me.  

Mormonism thrives best when we are the spiritual elite surrounded by ignorant dullards to compare our superiority to.  

[Calm]

I have lived for significant times in California (several cities in the Bay Area), Kansas, Illinois, and Canada and now Utah and a half year in Russia with many more years conversing with Russians.  In Canada I got to be good friends with those newly immigrated from Korea, China, and other places.

I don't find Utahns in general anymore isolated from reality or engaging in weirdness than any of the other places I have lived.  Each place seems to have its own cultural imprint that sees the rest of the world and itself in different ways than the other places see themselves and others and each had imo gaps in exposure to certain ideas, generally because they (speaking as a general culture, individuals always varied) just accepted as givens contrasting ideas and never questioned them.  It seems like expectations of what someone will find is often the greatest influence of what ends up being perceived.  

It was very interesting to hear the perceptions of the US from nonAmericans.  They were very perceptive in many ways, but also imo messed up when they started comparing the States to their own country.  Seems like people do better in just trying to learn about a country without comparing it to others.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Calm

[Keq82]

1 minute ago, Calm said:

I have lived for significant times in California (several cities in the Bay Area), Kansas, Illinois, and Canada and now Utah and a half year in Russia with many more years conversing with Russians.  In Canada I got to be good friends with those newly immigrated from Korea, China, and other places.

I don't find Utahns in general anymore isolated from reality or engaging in weirdness than any of the other places I have lived.  Each place seems to have its own cultural imprint that sees the rest of the world and itself in different ways than the other places see themselves and others and each had imo gaps in exposure to certain ideas, generally because they (speaking as a general culture, individuals always varied) just accepted as givens contrating ideas and never questioned them.  It seems like expectations of what someone will find is often the greatest influence of what ends up being perceived.  

It was very interesting to hear the perceptions of the US from nonAmericans.  They were very perceptive in many ways, but also imo messed up when they started comparing the States to their own country.  Seems like people do better in just trying to learn about a country without comparing it to others.

A ti govorish' po russki?  A gde zhil/zhila v Rossii?  

[Calm]

Too long ago, too many Russians who spoke English very well and too much drugs have played with my memory since then to even attempt to decipher that, though it looks like a few letters might be missing...I never did get those additional ones compketely under control.  Try Volgadon.  I always doublecheck with him to see if my memory is accurate anyway.

So no to the first question, I don't speak or read or understand Russian beyond "shtoh" (where is a backwards y when you need one?) and I have no clue what the second question is about.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Calm

[Keq82]

No worries!  Where in Russia did you live?  

[Tacenda]

31 minutes ago, Calm said:

I have lived for significant times in California (several cities in the Bay Area), Kansas, Illinois, and Canada and now Utah and a half year in Russia with many more years conversing with Russians.  In Canada I got to be good friends with those newly immigrated from Korea, China, and other places.

I don't find Utahns in general anymore isolated from reality or engaging in weirdness than any of the other places I have lived.  Each place seems to have its own cultural imprint that sees the rest of the world and itself in different ways than the other places see themselves and others and each had imo gaps in exposure to certain ideas, generally because they (speaking as a general culture, individuals always varied) just accepted as givens contrasting ideas and never questioned them.  It seems like expectations of what someone will find is often the greatest influence of what ends up being perceived.  

It was very interesting to hear the perceptions of the US from nonAmericans.  They were very perceptive in many ways, but also imo messed up when they started comparing the States to their own country.  Seems like people do better in just trying to learn about a country without comparing it to others.

Oh to be as well rounded as you Calm.  I feel like such a hick.

[Ahab]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

These comments beg the question as to why Utahans are bubbleheads.  If most are LDS this doesn't paint a good picture of Zion.  I'm a Utah native, I always wonder if I'll ever get out of Dodge.  The only way would have been an LDS mission in my senior years.  But I guess that won't likely happen now.  This is very depressing to me.  

Depression seems to be very popular in Utah so you are probably where you should be.

If you ever want to move, though, just move.

I came to Oregon from Arizona (through Utah) with only about $200 in my pocket, needing some of that for gas to get up here, and no job prospects.   I did have family to stay with for a few months but if you don't have any friends or family where you want to go you could sleep in your car for a while and shower/clean up in a gym. I did that for quite a while too.

You can do it too if you want to. Don't despair. 

[BlueDreams]

I've lived in northern Virgina, Texas, and UT primarily (minus my mission....in which I lived in four different states, depending the transfer). But I consider myself an east coaster primarily. I didn't experience culture shock when I was 8-9 and living in UT. I loved it! It's still the only place that I remember crying when I left the state. 

The second time around I was an adult heading for college. The 3 things I noticed first that was weird to me: the high concentration of blondes, the ridiculous amount of people who looked around the same age as me but had babies, and having to check for wedding rings when I was flirting/checking someone out. But honestly I had a bigger shock moving to texas from Virginia the second time around than I did UT the first. Texas' obsession with religious affiliation, stratified racial categorizing, the idea that you could ban books from schools because the word brothel was found, weird prejudices/beliefs about mormons, and the insane flatness of the land were among some of the things that were really really weird to me there. 

In some ways, I don't feel like I get the more local UT experience directly. I've lived in a college town, attend a largely student singles ward, and most of my closest friends are minority transplants. So basically, minimal culture shock for me....the closest is when I talk to some of my UT-raised clients (especially those who've left the church in some way....the way they describe the church and their experiences just feel really foreign at times from my LDS experience) or when I go to a couple family wards further out. I found it entertaining when I had a UT Companion on my mission who was from the middle of nowhere UT and was definitely struggling with some culture shock. She would tell me something and I'd get this look of reaallly??? tell me more..... Like the fact that anyone would use chewing tobacco or this funny thing where guys would wear bands underneath their dress shirts because it was considered attractive by the ladies to have garments, or living in a town where your family has resided for a century and half of the place are distant relatives (really small town). I don't think she appreciated my curiosity that probably felt like wanting to flip through national geographic - rural UT edition.

But honestly, though UT has its quarks, it also varies from area to area and depends on the demographics you socialize with most, like any other state. It's predominate cultural/religious influence just happens to be UT white mormon (pioneer stock in origin), so you get some quarky things that way....but it felt no more quarky than when the predominate group were southern baptist white texan.

 

With luv,

BD

Edited March 18, 2016 by BlueDreams