Top Five: Ways to become a Utahn

Just read a nice post from Garrison Keillor on things to do to become a Minnesotan. He focused on 'getting in tune with the land' kind of stuff, but it got me thinking: What should a new transplant do to become a real Utahn? First thing of course is, never spell it Utahan. But here are my real top five, from my perspective as a transplant (1995):

5. Get in tune with the land. Visit the many places that speak to the varied beauty that makes up Utah. Visit Moab/Arches/slip over to Mesa Verde. And Zions/Bryce/Cedar Breaks. Golf in St. George and Salt Lake. Drive the Alpine Loop. Hike Timp. Ask around for other places.

4. Ski at least once. You have many choices: Alta Brighton Snowbird from the Salt Lake side, Canyons Park City Deer Valley from the Park City side. And Utah County's own Sundance. All less than an hour from where you live. Or do the other kind of skiing (see #3).

3. Get in tune with the water. Get to learn about water facts here, like how does the Wasatch Front avoid being a desert? What are 'water rights'? Get a friend with a boat and water ski or wakeboard at a reservoir or lake: Utah, Bear, Willard Bay, Jordanelle, Deer Creek. Float or canoe the Provo River--or for more adventure, the Colorado. Take a dip in the Great Salt Lake, out by Saltair (not many Utahns under 40 have done this). Learn about xeriscaping.

2. Check out our human attractions. Go out to eat and more, at places like the Red Rock Brewing Company or The Roof restaurant. See sports, like the Utah Jazz (pro basketball), the Grizzlies (hockey), the Bees (baseball), and University of Utah or Brigham Young University football. Go to plays and performances at The Capitol, Abravanel Hall, Kingsbury Hall, and the Hale Centre Theatre. Visit museums like the Children's Museum and the Clark Planetarium. Walk the open air Gateway mall. Stroll the gardens at Thanksgiving Point or Red Butte (that's pronounced beaut, not butt). To feel small, visit the open air Kennecott copper mine.

1. Get in tune with the Mormons. You don't have to be one to do this. If you are Mormon, well God bless you. Keep working on things, serving, and inviting Christ into your life. Things will turn out OK. If you're not Mormon, here's a few suggestions:

Visit the Squares (Temple Square and Welfare Square) in Salt Lake. Go to a Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast (9:30 am Sundays, Conference Center). Attend a Fast and Testimony meeting (first Sunday each month, ask your neighbors about time and place). Read something honest but kind that introduces Mormons/Mormonism (like Richard Bushman's Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction). Go to the Family History library and look up ancestors. As a sample of Mormon scripture, read Joseph Smith's account of the 'First Vision', to learn something about our thoughts about God, revelation, the miraculous, religion, and thinking. And go from there, if you want.

There you go. #1 started to get away from me, I can see I'll have think about making that a subject of its own. In the mean time, welcome to Utah!

Top Five: First LDS Converts

Here are the five earliest of my ancestor families to join the LDS church. It's worth noting that through the Buchanan, Hatch, and Curtis lines, my grandchildren are tenth generation Mormons.

5. Aldura Sumner Hatch, February 1840. Taught and baptized in Lincoln, Vermont by Elders Sisson Chase and Peltiah Brown. "The ice was a foot deep; and before they could be baptized, a hole had to be cut through the ice." A son and a couple of other relatives were baptized the same day; her husband Hezekiah, parents-in-law, and most of her children were baptized by the end of the year. In April of 1842, just before the family was to leave for Nauvoo, Aldura caught 'the black tongue' and died. The heartbroken family buried their wife and mother, then began the journey west to Illinois.

4. Richard Steele, January 1840. Taught and baptized by Henry Glover in Burslem (now Stoke on Trent), England just before his 22nd birthday. Unemployed after completing his apprenticeship in pottery-making, he took to Mormonism quickly. After baptism he hung out with the missionaries and was called on a mission later that year. Emigrated to Nauvoo in 1842, helped settle American Fork, Utah.

3. Samuel Miles, March 1834. Baptized by Orson Pratt in Freedom, New York. Was a brother-in-law to Warren Cowdery and lived next to him, so heard about the church early on--proof sheets as the Book of Mormon was being printed, perhaps a visit with Oliver Cowdery, meetings with friends all crescendoed into many baptisms when Pratt visited the community. Lived in Missouri and Nauvoo, died in St. Louis in 1847. His son Samuel was in the Mormon Battalion, and his wife Prudence and most of his children settled in Utah and Idaho.

2. Emeline Buchanan, February 1834. Living with her parents in central Illinois (Tazewell County), she joined the church at age 14. Her parents John and Nancy joined a year later. Years later, she remembered lying under a hickory tree and looking across the Mississippi River and watching parts of Nauvoo burn. Settled in Springville, Utah.

1. Enos Curtis, 1831. Learned about the church from his son in law, Elial Strong, and was baptized in Tioga County, Pennsylvania. In 1832, went with the group of missionaries from the Columbia Township branch up to Mendon NY and helped teach Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball. Settled in Springville, Utah and became a patriarch. His son Simmons married Emeline Buchanan (see #2).