The Mormon Diaries: Chapter 1 – The Neighbors

They thought I had a speech impediment. Or, at the very least, a mild learning disability.

First night in the new condo. Why not invite the neighbors over?, I figured. Down a couple shots, pregame through an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode, and see where the night took us.

In New York City, this would be fool-proof. It would invariably led to a club, mysterious $91 bar tab, 4:11 AM slice of baked ziti pizza, Coconut Water-infused Sunday recovery, and an all-around “solid” weekend.

But this was not New York City. This was Utah. The bar (there’s only one) closed at midnight. Baked ziti was simply a greasy lunch side at Sizzler’s. And the neighbors were Mormon.

They didn’t drink. They prayed. They didn’t watch R-rated TV or go to clubs. They attended prayer ward, went bowling, and were in bed by 10:30.

I didn’t know this at the time, of course.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Provo, Utah on a Friday night smacks of Pleasantville 1960s America. It is best seen in black and white. Best listened to with the Leave It To Beaver or Andy Griffith theme song.

Coat-and-tied eight year olds wave at you with eerie Children Of The Corn-type smiles. White button-downed BYU students march along in lock-step through The Mall—again, there’s only one—before 9 PM closing time. They share peanuts and tales from their overseas Missions at 5 Guys. They are the sort of people who laugh a little too hard for a little too long at CBS sitcom promos on diner TVs.

They don’t swear. Mormons believe cursing harms your spirit and separates you from God. They mumble “dang” and “fetch” instead. At worst—and usually in the context of BYU football’s run defense—they shout “Holy fetch!” The dogs are perpetually confused.

To them, I’m the smug East Coaster personified. I’m everything their mother warned them about and then some. I don’t go to church Sundays. I go to the sports bar and drink beer. I don’t read Scripture or the Book of Mormon. I browse The New York Times on my iPad. I download movies illegally. I crank the heat up to 78 degrees at all times. I replay SportsCenter constantly. Often at volumes louder than necessary.

In short, I am going to hell. Or the Mormon conception of it: the Telestial Kingdom.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains there are three Kingdoms of Glory. The most devout souls are ferried to the Celestial Kingdom. Joseph Smith taught that these rarefied few receive their own star, a white rock engraved with their name and an endless after-life with God and Jesus. Candidates include the most pious of spirits and children who tragically pass away before the age of eight.

The Terrestrial Kingdom awaits the not-quite-perfect followers. The silver medal of Mormon after-lives for those who lived nobly, paid their 10% tithe to the church, but “were blinded by the craftiness of men”. Inhabitants are not granted a star and must wait in a spiritual holding cell of sorts until they are resurrected into the Celestial Kingdom.

The Telestial Kingdom awaits sinners like me. It is the jail of after-life for “liars, and sorcerers, and adulterers, and whoremongers, and whosoever loves and makes a lie.” Because I did not accept the full gospel of Jesus, I will be incarcerated in Spirit prison for a sentence of no less than 1000 years. Whereupon I will be released and live out all eternity as a “filthy”, immortal savage.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Utahans espouse their own pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-ski-boots ideology. They don’t ask for much. They keep it simple: a 5% flat tax, a couple ski runs on Saturday, church and the Broncos game come Sunday.

The right to bear arms is not a constitutional right. It’s a Saturday afternoon work release. New Yorkers can guzzle Xanax and gush to $300-an-hour psychiatrists all they want. But give a Ute a shotgun, a rusted over fridge, and a field and you’ll achieve the same effect for a fraction of the price.

Alas, all it takes is one. One Warren Jeffs. One unhinged man with a gun who ruins it for the rest of them. Who smears hard-nosed, salt-of-the-Earth folk into “those crazy Mormons”. A fringe people who “cling to guns and religion” as President Obama infamously told a room of $500-a-plate San Francisco donors. And Utah will never forgive him for it.

Utes don’t do stats. If they did, they’d point to a 7.4% state unemployment rate—well lower than that of New York (8%) and California (11.9%). Or how the state routinely tops New York and the Northeast in happiness, life expectancy, and crime.

But the Utes do not bother. They quit fighting that battle long ago. They’ve reached a grudging acceptance: they’re on their own. The coasts won’t understand.

Mostly, they’re tired of it. Tired of being lumped with Wyoming, Nebraska, and the other Red States. Tired of being summarily dismissed by East and West Coast pundits as Fly Over Country.

They are tired of an East Coast sports bias that routinely snubbed perfect Boise State for defeated but big-market SEC or Big 12 football teams. Tired of a political elite that discounts Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon. Tired of a satirical pop culture that desecrates their faith into a smash-hit Broadway play.

They settle into a prickly reserve when I tell them I moved from New York City. They go silent. Neither wanting to prove nor disprove whatever “crazy bunch of Mormons” stereotypes they are sure I’ve heard. Leery of East Coasters who muck up their ski resorts, riff on their wife-count, and otherwise ignore them.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

These shots won’t drink themselves, I figured.

So I gulped the six down on my own. Right then and there. I wasn’t black-out, per se. But it was that time of the night. You know, when the whites whiten. The blacks blacken. The eyes shift from video mode to photo:

Short, choppy snapshots of five blonde-haired, holiday sweatered and now horrified Mormons watching It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia—the D.E.N.N.I.S. System episode—in stunned silence.

I was bleary-eyed, slurry-speeched, and loving every minute of it. And that’s when the Mormons tried to convert me.
“Have you read the Book of Mormon?” the chubby, buck-toothed one asked me. Eyes glistening. Hopes buoyed that I could be saved. That after seven years in Sin City, he could bring me to the light.

“Sooooooorry, I don’t read fiction.” I reportedly replied.

Relations with the Flake brothers have been strained ever since.