Mormon Country

Once Erin and I reached Salt Lake City, I park in a garage next to a Nordstrom’s and we check into a room at the Marriott.  Across the street from the hotel is Temple Square, the mecca for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons.  

In 1847 Brigham Young led his fellow people to an isolated spot in the desert and decided to build a Kingdom of God on Earth.  He flocked to the West to avoid the violence that was being afflicted against the followers of this new faith.  Joseph Smith, the founder, was killed by a mob.  Religious intolerance was one of the reasons many Europeans flocked to America in the first place.  The flight of the Mormons is further proof that people seem to get angry when beliefs about deities don’t align.

Within days of arriving in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young started building the temple, which is now a giant edifice resembling Cinderella’s castle.  Today there are several buildings next to the temple which makes the grounds seem like a campus.  There is a church, a skyscraper where the business is conducted, restaurants, a visitor center which contains a miniature model of the temple, and a genealogy research center.  I walk toward the Family Search Center and recognize the icon.  I pull out my wallet and there is a business card with the exact same company on it. 

When I was walking in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, I noticed a giant building with a golden statue on top of a hill.  I assumed it was a church of some type, so I decided to have a look at the interior.  I tugged on the door but it was locked.  A few men wearing suits and a woman wearing a business-like dress opened the door and asked if they could help me.  I told them I was just curious about this building and wanted to take a look at the inside.  They told me in order to go inside the temple I had to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I had to be in good standing for at least a year before I could step foot inside the temple.  I thought this was very bizarre to cut off public access when so many religious buildings encouraged tourists to appreciate the artwork and even attend services. 

I thanked them for explaining and proceeded down the hill toward the cruise ship.  On my way I ran into an older couple who asked me if I was a member of the church.  I said I wasn’t.  I wanted to see inside that building, but apparently access is very exclusive.  The couple explained they were Mormons from Utah and came to the islands to see the temple.  When they asked me what I was doing in Hawaii, I explained my job on the cruise ship, and they said they were staying there this week.  I invited them to sit in my section at the restaurant where I worked.  During dinner that night, they spoke of their lives in Utah, the dry summers and snowy winters, and the man gave me his business card.  He told me he researches ancestries to see where individual families have originated.

In Salt Lake City I am holding the Family Search business card.  I open the doors and a white haired old man greets me from the front desk and asks me if I have any questions.  I ask him about the type of work they do here, and he tells me they have connected relatives from the present day to people living a thousand years ago. 

I want to press him more about this religion, which, to me, seems like the biggest hoax since Santa Claus.  I want to know how so many people have been so rapturously persuaded to live this way.  The old man tells me the significance of Pioneer Day, which is celebrated on July 24^th and is much like the American Independence Day.  The holiday commemorates the day Brigham Young reached Utah and began to complete his vision of establishing a channel between earth and heaven. 

The Mormons believe that families are eternally linked, and they will not hesitate to tell you this.  They so strongly believe in the impermanence of familial bonds in the same way people are relieved to know they have secured reservations in a busy restaurant.  Sometimes I wish I had the imagination or faith o whatever it takes to believe in such a warm, fuzzy thought, but I am too rational.  I am amazed at how many people so fervently cling to these principles; there seems to be no casual Mormon in Salt Lake City.  Everyone is selling Mormonism, and I want to play the role of seemingly interested customer who is merely browsing with no intent to buy.

The building is closing in a few minutes, so I take advantage of their luxurious restrooms and then take the elevator up to the top floor to see the temple from above.  On the top floor there is a restaurant packed with guests and bustling waitresses.  While I look out the window at the magnificent castle-like structure, I wonder if you have to be Mormon to work in the restaurant, and then I wonder if Mormons are good tippers. 

I am beginning to get the impression that every Mormon in Salt Lake City is a fanatic, and I want to know if there is anyone out there half-assing this thing.  I see so many young women wearing name tags saying things like, “My mission trip changed my life.”  I volunteered to teach English in Ghana, a small country in West Africa, and while I was there I saw two young men wearing white shirts and black ties riding bicycles through the village of Kasoa.  They were Mormons.

I don’t believe it’s right to impose a foreign religion onto people who barely comprehend English.  I’ve seen cases of missionaries persuading with fear of damnation.  If you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your only savior then you are going to burn in hell for eternity.  African communities have had their own religious beliefs long before the white man introduced European languages and the Bible.  Now those traditions are fading so that blacks can worship a white god.    

I have more questions about this religion, and in the lobby I find a woman who is more than eager to share her story and provide me with answers.  She shakes my hand and introduces herself.  I ask her if you have to go on a mission to become a Mormon, and who pays for these trips?  She tells me that a mission is not required to be a member, but if one wishes to embark on a mission he or she must pay for the trip.  She went to Dallas after her husband passed away.  She says she was nervous and out of her comfort zone, especially considering that she was living with stranger, who was also on his mission trip.

What about this exclusionary business with the temples?  The woman says that temples are designated as sacred sites where Mormons can find connection with god.  There is a buffer period after the temple is constructed when the public can visit, but once some sort of ritual is performed it is members only from that point forward.  She then tells me that many major players of the church live and work in the large business center, where most of the accounting is done. 

I have seen the miniature replica of the temple, and the interior is extremely luxurious.  There are expensive chandeliers and an ornate bath used for baptisms of the dead.  Inside the lobby in which I am standing hangs a gaudy chandelier surrounded by marble columns.  

The Mormons preach frugality and humility, yet their temples resemble a king’s palace filled with gold.  She leads me to a simple worshipping area, and there I ask her if the restaurants are owned by the church.

“I have never seen a restaurant inside a church before,” I say. “Do you have to be Mormon to work there?”

She says she doesn’t know, and I try to keep my tone neutral rather than mocking, which is difficult.  I have been to the Vatican and seen the Sistine Chapel, which was full of tourists gawking at Michelangelo’s work.  But in Temple Square in Salt Lake City, I get more of a Disney World vibe.  Yes, the Mormons are spreading the word about their religion, but they are also dressing it up with gaudy decorations and teasing the public by closing their temple doors. 

The woman keeps reminding me that Mormons still accept Jesus Christ as their only savior.  I don’t know why she keeps insisting on this because I never express any doubt regarding her messiah, but I accept this as an odd habit of hers. 

“Many people think we worship Mormon, or the angel Moroni, who spoke to Joseph Smith,” she says and then goes on to explain the origins of the Book of Mormon.  She says that this angel visited earth and transcribed the word of God onto golden plates and then hid those plates in the mountains.  She is very confident that the angel visited several places in North America, and she expresses great excitement when mentioning the golden plates.

“Where are the plates now?” I ask.  “Do you have them stored in the temple?”

“We don’t know where they are,” she says, defeated.

 

She gives me a look that says, I know this is hard to believe, but you’ll just have to trust me on this.  But I don’t budge.  This is beginning to seem more and more like a fairy tale.  I am reminded of Christmas mornings as a child when I found an empty glass of milk and a plate of cookie crumbs.  The evidence is gone. 

“But we believe that families are eternal.  My husband passed away, and that’s a nice thing to believe in,” she says.

I agree that it is very comforting, and I genuinely feel sympathetic toward the woman.  I admire the Mormons for explaining their religion rather than pushing it onto people (with the exception of their mission trips).  Never once did she ask me if I was interested in joining the church.  She never handed me any pamphlets, and she was responsive to all of my questions.  Although I don’t believe what the Mormons believe, I am interested in their role in developing the American West.  Some trekked toward the Rocky Mountains to dig for gold.  Ranchers fenced in the prairies so their cattle could graze while others fled the East for an open land so they could feel closer to their god.