A long time ago, I walked into a bookstore in Washington DC and came upon a book by Bill Bryson.  I’d never heard of him before but I was immediately absorbed by this book he had written about his life in England.  He’d grown up in Iowa, as he writes about in another one of his books that I read eventually.  That book has one of the best first lines I have ever read in my life, namely “I’m from Iowa.  Someone has to be.” 

What really absorbed me about this book and subsequent books by Bryson that I read was that he documented every detail about the places he wrote about.  He wrote about England, he wrote about Europe, Australia and his early life in Iowa. You read these books and he writes about the food he ate as a kid, the names of the supermarkets in Australia and what different things were called in the hardware store in England.  

I often wonder why I document things as much as I do. I’ve documented about 30 years of my own life photographically.  I always had diaries and journals growing up.  Bryson and I have that in common.  We’re both insistent, persistent documentarians.  Bill was fascinated by his Australian friend going to the supermarket.  I’m not entirely dissimilar to Bill.  I’m fascinated by life in other places, how it’s different and yet the same as what we all do every day.  

I mean where am I going with this and I am going somewhere with it.  I promise.  One thing I hate is when people group together “Americans” into this one large monolith.  Nobody lumps all of Europe together and talks about them as a monolith and this isn’t really right anyway in other cultural monolithic tendencies.  Asians.  That covers over half of the planet.  Asians.  A mix of cultures, languages and histories, which we mistakenly lump together into one group.  

I wonder sometimes why Americans are lumped together like that.  Ok I watch a lot of videos on Instagram explore videos.  Fine.  Guilty.  Among those videos, there are always things about how to tell an American in the wild.  The ball cap.  The cargo shorts. The tendency to marvel at how “old” a thing is if it’s about 200 years old.  Europeans scoff at these immature Americans marveling over “old” things in museums that their grandmothers are for sure still using.  

One thing the video always say is that Americans never say “I’m from the US.”  They say what state they come from.  Foreigners find this strange, but to us that seems obvious.  America is a wide, diverse country whose regional cultures reflect the first immigrants in the area, the natives in that area and the geography of the area.  

Boston and New York make perfect sense.  Great natural harbors, settled by European immigrants, formed into densely packed enclaves that are at the same time startlingly insular and yet also outward looking.  My fascination with history on the small scale, I imagine the first settlers to New York seeing a good harbor and starting to build, the present day lower Manhattan offering few reminders of the small settlements that the metropolis sprung from.  If you look closely enough, you catch glimpses of those first settlements in Lower Manhattan.  Boston was good enough to preserve more of this history from that time period.  I’ve trod the soil of Boston for 15 years now, but I never tire of walking down Union street, as I’ve nicknamed it, Boston’s one street of Europe.  

To a person who is so ingrained in the northeastern United States as I am, it’s my default.  New York City, a place my family and I have now passed in and out of for going on 40 years is our default.  Oh we have the same thing in New York.  Oh we don’t have that in New York.  Now for me, I’ve lived in Boston more constantly than I did in New York, I leave and think — we kinda have the same thing in Boston.  Pilgrim hats.  Atlantic everything.  Patriots.  

Over the last few years, I’ve really become fascinated by the United States.  Funny saying that, as I grew up here and this is really the only home I know but I feel like I don’t really know this country very well, travel wise.  Traveling around with Herman, I got to know the south and Florida.  Florida.  A swamp where an amusement park governed over by a talking mouse was built that acreage wise, is the size of several small towns in Massachusetts.  A place where you can see penguins living in the lap of luxury with their own snowmaker and a replica of Portofino, Italy within 15 minutes of each other.  Orlando, Florida in a couple of neat sentences.

I’m also learning about the south as I’ve recently fallen in with a big group of people from that area.  I now say “bless your heart” to people when they really annoy me.  And us Northerners.  Northerners, kind but not nice, as evidenced by my shahts wearing cantankerous chauffeur/driving instructor/local crime historian Fred.  Mean but kind.  A guy who screams at people but will walk through fire for you.  Southerners, by stereotype, kind but not nice.  Bless your heart as a way to call someone stupid in a sneaky way.  

But what of the west???  Suddenly the opportunity presented itself to continue my informal cataloguing, a Bill Bryson type of documentation for documentation’s sake.  A new, rapidly becoming dear friend spends her summers on the west coast and invited me out there.  

I’ve grown to love my summer July/August travel and have no plans to give that up any time soon.  I forgo all of my purchases of take out, makeup and clothing for the entire summer to salt away enough to pay for my trip.  I started checking out flights out west and started seeing all of these places I had never been to before.  Vegas.  Salt Lake City.  I mean if I’m going to fly over 2000 miles, why not make a pit stop somewhere I have never been before?

My first choice was Las Vegas.  I mean Vegas Baby!!!!  But of late, I’ve been asked by the family about what I intend to do.  Of course I am an adult and can do whatever I want, but to be considerate, I’ve started asking my family about what I want to do.  Vegas got a Polish mom hard NO.  Or “do whatever you want.”  Oh that would be perfect fodder for my new favorite Instagram, starring a Polish guy with a folded canvas shopping bag secured to his head, wearing a bathrobe and slippers that were only sold in Poland between 1975 and 1982.  He has basically transcribed the things my mother says and I really think he should make a video of what the Polish mother says when she doesn’t want to say no.  Go to VEGAS??????  Rób Co Chcesz!!!!  Do whatever you want!!!!  

Then I struck upon the idea of going to Salt Lake City.  I mean Utah.  What was that???  What was there?? I wanted to venture over and find out.  In a turn of events I never expected, I found myself transfixed by the place.  

It felt almost odd writing that, but those were my true feelings.  I wasn’t even sure how it was going to go. I would be there for a day by myself.  I don’t mind being alone.  I actually need a lot of time to myself, to reset, to calm down, to be creative.  I’m alone when I get home, but I hadn’t been alone in a place that is completely new to me in a long time.  

This is going to sound profoundly corny, but as soon as I got off the plane, there was just something about the place.  I haven’t felt this way about a place in a very long time.  Interestingly I could maybe only relate this to being in Iceland exactly a year ago.  I booked a stay at a place called The Little America hotel, solely because of the name.  I got out of the plane and saw this huge, clear sky with mountains off in the distance.  Now you can use your phone for everything, but I thought it would be better to interact with the locals.  There wasn’t a shuttle running from the hotel to the airport, but no problem.  A trolley runs from the airport to where my hotel was.

To my great shock, I was told to board the green line to my hotel.  I thought I had misheard this, given the fact that I have spent 15 years directly next to the green line, well a green line, because as it turns out, Salt Lake City has a green line of its own.  A superior upgrade, I gotta say from our green line.  It stops considerably fewer times, doesn’t feature anyone doing beatboxing routines, nor does it require any sort of payment.  Yes.  You read that right.  No payment.  

I got to the hotel and napped for several hours.  Fred and I had hit the road to the airport at 4am, I had gone across two time zones and I needed to hit the bed.  That evening though, I did go to the restaurant in the hotel and was greeted in a warm and friendly way by the hotel staff.  

The next day, after quite a bit of sleep, I set out on my day to see Salt Lake City.  I didn’t really have an itinerary.  I figured walk towards the Capitol building, thinking that there would be stuff to get along the way.  I wanted to get a feel for the place.  

The air reminded me of Wieliczka, a sanatorium and salt mine in the south of Poland.  It was somehow different and fresher than I had experienced for a while.  It was going to be one of those days when I talked upwards of 15,000 steps.  Water or a beverage???  Well, I would find that along the way, or so I thought.  It turned out I had thought wrong.  As I walked, I noticed things about the city.  It is sparsely built up, but compared to New York, anything is sparsely built up.

I was closely observing the city.  It was spotlessly clean.  In every direction, you could see the mountains. There were a lot of these new buildings, but also ones that showed the old history of the town.  Even though it’s 2024, it really did feel like there were lots of signs that this was still the frontier.  The pioneer myth was still alive and well here. 

The place has a planned feel.  I was happy to see a grid, which feels familiar to me from New York and a relief from Boston and it’s strange streets that seem to have no rhyme or reason.  In Salt Lake City, I could just walk in a straight line towards the Capitol, kinda like I did in DC.

A few views from the city:

Before not too long, I walked by this incredible monolith of a building.  It was gleaming white.  I turned left and stood there in awe.  I had only intended on cutting through the place to walk to the capitol, but God or Jesus or whoever, had other plans.  The little park was sparking white and on top of every building, it said “the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”  My reaction was and this is going to date me quite a bit was to immediately remember the ads for the Latter Day Saints that used to run when I was a kid, with these little life lessons that ended with “Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.”

No trying to dunk on the Mormons, but yeah. Mormons build big. BIG:

To sorta side track things, I was only saying half tongue in cheek that God and Jesus led me to check out the Mormons.  I became a Christian in 2017 and I’ve gone through this evolution as I’ve gone down this path.  I could write an entire book on how God and church has changed me and how the journey has shaped me.  “Journey has shaped me.”  Yup.  That’s kinda corny but I guess it’s the best way to describe the past few years.  I don’t think faith is just deciding one day that you believe and you accept everything and never evolve.  Focusing on forgiveness, acknowledging that human beings are flawed and make mistakes, accepting people.  Jesus was born, lived a perfect life and died for our sins.  That’s a central part of Christianity.  Understanding God as a person in Jesus, as having been a perfect human being, it gives us something to turn to where worldly things don’t matter and we don’t have the inevitable dissatisfaction of the things of the earth.  I was that person who was eternally dissatisfied with everything I achieved.  I was eternally comparing myself to other people.  I always felt like I really didn’t accomplish anything compared to this other person.  They made more money than me.  They were just better than me, at least in my mind.  In my mind, I was always falling short.  Somehow though when I started going to church, that feeling went away.  Church made me whole.

People say in the church that you meet people where they are.  People helping each other through hard times in life.  We live in community with each other.  Our connections with each other go above regular friendship.  We live with each other.  We’re all doing life together.  I say sometimes that these people really taught me how to be a human.  I’ve always been funny but with a dark edge.  I complained a lot.  Oh I loved complaining.  If only everyone just did things my way and saw it my way.  I thought if I complained enough, things would change, that my complaining would change them.  Now I don’t really feel that way.  Not all of us get along and we’re not all the same.  Life would be really boring if we were exactly alike.  I think that’s a mistake people make.  We’d be in this eternal echo chamber if we were just surrounded by people who were exactly like us.  Church teaches us how to get along with people we might disagree with in fundamental ways.  

Here I am coming from a history where everyone was always just trying to one up me.  You went to 16 countries.  I’ve been to 60.  I’ll never forget a long ago conversation with Little Edie about our shared grand tours of Europe that we took as grown up world weary privileged 20 year olds.  Here we were in our post college apartment with the hole in the ceiling recalling what we had seen on our aforementioned grand tour.  I was talking about going to Denmark, Poland, Estonia and Russia.  I hadn’t seen anything according to the Little Edie.  At the time, I thought that I had really seen anything and this was somehow bad, somehow made me less worldly, less worthy.  Now, as a 47 year old, I see the utterly wrong all of this was.  I had visited four major countries, having the time and money to get to do this.  At that time, I didn’t take into account the privilege this involved, the access this involved and the gratefulness I should have expressed, rather than the feeling of just not being good enough from this.  Church, God, Christianity, takes this feeling away from you.  You are enough.  You would be enough if you had never left the country.  God loves you, no matter how many or how few countries you have traveled to.  

Back to my walk though Salt Lake City.  I’m transfixed by this white monolith.  It reminded me of my freshman year dorm in college, but much more gleaming and white.  On every side of the building, it said “Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.”  Just like in the commercials I saw as a kid.  The complex got more interesting and beautiful as I looked around.  It seemed reminiscent of the design of the original World Trade Center.  I couldn’t stop looking at it.

I looked over and there was the famous temple, covered in scaffolding.  Next to the temple, I saw two young women with the characteristic Mormon missionary badges.  I figured going up to them wouldn’t hurt and I really thought that they would enjoy telling someone their message.  I went up to them and told them that I am Baptist and not intention to make fun of them or ridicule them.  These two young women, their sole purpose there was to tell people about faith.  They started explaining about the Mormon belief system and some it dovetailed with what the Baptists believe.  Then they motioned towards the visitor’s center and that it has a roof deck.

I came into the center and I realized I had stepped into Mormon-land.  Mormon-ia,  I am in no way trying to make fun of what I saw and there will be pictures accompanying, but it was like visiting another planet. Planet Mormon.  Again, in this next part, I am in absolutely no way fun of the Mormons or their belief system.  Yes, certain figures who have gotten involved in Mormonism, certain parts of Mormonism, like all religions can get toxic and cause people pain.  However, I don’t intend this entry to be a polemic on the belief system of the Mormons. 

Walking in, you see large portraits of the leaders of the church.  A man named Russell Nelson is the president of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I want to call everyone in the church as correctly as I can.  The next thing I saw was a huge church assembly hall that I later found out seats 2,000.  There was some beautiful music playing there when I walked in.  I had intended to walk in, take a rest and then take an elevator up to the roof deck, enjoy the roof deck and keep walking.  Well, God or the temple had other plans.  

Again, The Latter Day Saints, they do not build small or meek or simple:

Someone came along and told me that I should go downstairs and that they give tours of the center.  Then I think the God part came into play.  As I walked downstairs, I saw a young woman with her missionary badge and it had a Polish flag on it.  I double checked that it wasn’t an Indonesian flag, but it looked like a Polish flag.  So I started talking to the young woman in Polish.  I mean let’s get in my fifteen minutes a year of speaking Polish.  Ok, maybe I get an hour a year in.  Depending on the year.  

The young woman was entertained by finding another Polish person.  We started talking and it turned out that she was from a Polish family, but grew up in New Zealand.  Oh just like me who grew up pretty much everywhere.  Chicago-New York-Westchester-Upstate New York-Washington DC-Boston.  Hot dogs with peppers on them to hot dogs with mustard on them to thick slices of pizza to Stewarts soda to fried chicken to lobster rolls.  As much as I say, I don’t feel like I’m a good Polish person, when I meet another Polish person, I do get excited.  Pretty soon, I found out that a tour group of Polish people were arriving at any moment and that they would be walking around the conference center.  I asked politely if I could join.  Their leader came up to this Polish woman to make it clear to her that the tour group needed to be out of there at a certain time.  The tour group leader turned to me and said “don’t ask a million questions.”  Um, ok???  I turned to him and in my “flawless” Polish and said “I only take a million photos.”  And that’s the truth.  

We started our tour around the conference center.  Yeah, we’re all the way down here and we’re finally getting to the point.  Herman would disapprove!!!  

Now here is the part that I have been a little reluctant to write.  There’s no other way to put this but the Mormons believe things that to people who are not of the Christian faith seem completely, for lack of a better word, weird.  I do not mean this in a way that I think or would label their belief system as weird, rather people who are total outsiders to faith, their reaction would be that the story of how the book of Mormon was written is weird and that its contents are weird.  People who aren’t of faith would quite frankly, ridicule the book of Mormon.  The whole story can strain credulity.  A fifteen year old boy in upstate New York went to the woods, confused about his faith and saw a vision of God and Jesus, telling him he was absolved of his sins.  A few years later, he was finally told that he could access gold plates written in reformed a “reformed Egyptian” language that an angel named Moroni told him were buried in a certain spot.  He then translated these plates that talks about two groups called the Nephites and the Lamanites, who were frequently in conflict with one another.  The Nephites believed in Jesus and that he appeared to them.  What can be seen as hard to grasp or accept or conceptualize, depending on where you are faith wise, is that the Mormons believe Jesus made his way to the Americas after his resurrection.  

For Christians, a lot of what the Mormons believe feel incredibly familiar.  There’s a structure in the life of the church that feels extremely familiar to us.  But other things that the Mormons believe, namely the contents of the book of Mormon are a little far afield.  Jesus came to the Americas after the resurrection?  Well, that’s a little unusual, because non-Latter Day Saint Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead in the New Testament, met with his disciples and then went to heaven after 40 days.  For non-LDS Christians, Jesus making his way to the Americas during this time period simply does not follow what is in the New Testament.  It seems to take considerable liberties with a holy book that has been read and re-read for the past 2000 years.  The Book of Mormon as an additional book to the foundational texts of Christianity?  Interesting but not necessarily readily accepted.  

If you push aside whatever tendencies you might have towards ridiculing these people, well, you are taking the easy way out.  One day at church, our pastor, Matt Waldrep said that sarcasm and ridicule are easy.  Understanding and being open minded, that is difficult.  And first and foremost, I approached the Mormons this way.  

I’m saying all of this because this leads us back to our trip around the conference center.  In the conference center, there are paintings of the stories from the book of Mormon.  These are quite beautiful paintings, full of color and action, showing bravery, battles, sadness, loss and triumph.  Themes and figures familiar to even the most hardened atheists to the most devout Christians.  These paintings feature familiar characters, like Jesus and unfamiliar characters like Native Americans.

Now throw into this a young woman whose role it is to explain this in Polish, her second language, to a big group of Polish people.  I busied myself with taking pictures, to give the woman space and to not make her feel self conscious.  I love art anyway and I appreciated the time to study the paintings.  

The paintings:

There was also a wall of portraits of the church leaders.  The LDS is lead by a president, his two counselors and the quorum of the 12 apostles, terminology familiar to anyone who has even brushed up against Christianity in any way.  Seeing these terminologies for the leadership, I was surprised that these were named as church positions.  In the Bible, they are people who perform miracles, preach the gospel, establish churches and witness Jesus’s resurrection.  This was another shift away from the non-LDS Christianity that I’ve gotten to know over the past seven years.  

As I walked through the center, I realized something.  Mormons like big.  Mormons build big.  I gently asked where the money comes from for all of this and the answer was that all the money belongs to the lord.  Again, not being polemical, nor do I want to set off some kind of crazy political or religious discussion.  

Well, we’re about 4,000 words in and I haven’t even gotten to the temple yet.  The temple, yeah.  Well, it’s being renovated for the next few years and well, inaccessible most of the time to non-Mormons anyway, even if it were not under a ton of scaffolding.  

Even under the scaffolding, the temple was impressive.  The conference center features a cut away model of the temple.  I was really surprised by how many rooms the temple has.  Layers upon layer of rooms that serve different purposes.  The Mormons perform a variety of ceremonies, including marriage inside the temple.  

Some views from the model of the temple we were shown:

What struck me was how well the Polish woman explained everything that goes on in the temple.  The woman explained what goes on there really well, in what was really her second language.  And despite the tour group asking it’s own million questions.

I came back from my trip and got a variety of reactions from my friends and family.  Suddenly, I am so interested in who the Mormons are and what they believe in.  But really, I was welcomed warmly by them and impressed by how they create genuine community.  What I realized though was that if I didn’t have faith in my life, I wouldn’t have even approached them or talked to them.  Or I would have ridiculed them.  Openness, understanding and empathy, those are difficult.  Ridicule and sarcasm, those are easy.  Do the hard thing in life.  Do the hard thing in life.