Being Non-Mormon in Utah - What You Should Know

how's it going my friends right now i'm basically in the center of the mormon religion right back here is the salt lake city temple which is full of scaffolding actually the scaffolding is very impressive uh right over here convention center right over here is the library of the church and the reason i'm starting here is because today's video we're talking about what sort of impact does the mormon religion being centered in salt lake city actually have on your life what's it actually like to live in utah in salt lake city as a non-mormon let's get it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] how's it going my friends my name is jesse lynch and i run the hardest working real estate team in the game we're called welcome to salt lake city and you can check out our website welcome to salt lake city dot co but this youtube channel is all about helping you find a place to call home a place to land here in beautiful salt lake city utah the wasatch front pretty much anywhere in utah to be quite frank and that's whether you're buying a house for the first time or relocating here from a different city state country or planet so first-time home buyers and relocations that's what we do and that's what we do better than anybody else so if either of those two things appeal to you then do us both a favor and subscribe to the channel and click the bell to get notified so you can see when we put these videos out we do our absolute best to put out the most immersive honest and just like in-depth and just the best videos anywhere on the internet about what it's like to live here in salt lake city utah the wasatch front etc so i think you'll be glad you did and as always if you wouldn't mind i would appreciate it very much if you give the video a thumbs up and leave a comment of any sort at all i guess except a mean one but truly you can say anything you can say go jazz i went to a jazz game last night it was very fun that engagement is helpful not only to this video not only to this channel but to other people like yourselves who are thinking about moving here right so i would appreciate that and as always if you are one of those people who are moving here get a hold of us and we will crush it for you you can go to our website welcome to salt lake city dot co we have a contact form there that is an absolute piece of cake to fill out or you can shoot us an email directly to info at welcome to salt lake city dot co and they leave the same inbox so it is completely up to you how you do it right here is basically the church of jesus christ latter-day saints convention center the mormon convention center lds convention center kind of however you want to say it and that's because today's video we are talking about what's it like what's it really like living in utah as a non-mormon person is a very common question i think in the same way that people associate buying a home like first time home buyers hear it from people all the time to buy a home you have to put 20 down that's just not the case at all like there's it's it's so much lower than that these days for a multitude of reasons but the same sort of misconception or you know whatever preconceived notion that utah is just all mormon people all the time it's just super not true and the impact that it has on your life i dare i say is my newt all right let's get into the video right now [Music] [Music] bye [Music] [Music] all right y'all so this question right what's it like to live in utah in salt lake city as a non-mormon is a very very common question and it's just like you know this preconceived notion of like everybody who is here's a mormon etc and it's just not the case right statistically uh actually in salt lake city in salt lake county the mormon population has actually become a minority which in fairness for decades if not longer mormons definitely did sort of dominate the population right but again not the case anymore statistically speaking salt lake county which is all pretty much right here by the way i'm an east bench preserve in the east bench neighborhood just a beautiful trail with like stunning stunning views oh it's so cool and i i love the east bench neighborhood we have a virtual tour of it as well and the homes there and the views are all quite quite remarkable so again statistically speaking uh salt lake county is now officially the minority population mormon which is 48 or so recorded population mormons utah county to the south which is basically beyond sort of uh the traverse mountains um absolutely beautiful country that population is considerably higher we're talking 82 recording right which i'll get to in a second and then summit county which is where park city is that's way lower um and it's like 28 percent uh but the thing i want to touch on is those numbers don't necessarily reflect like the reality right i think to some degree those numbers are inflated right and then you know the church uh lds the mormon church the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints basically all the same thing they you know they have records of people who are sort of recorded as being belonging to the church but that doesn't necessarily mean that all those folks are practicing right it's maybe they're born into it maybe at some point they belong to it and we're practicing and now they are not or you know potentially they're like looser right really to me the thing that i want to get across is that it's not a whole lot different from any other religion and you know how many cities across the country there are with you know majority christian members or majority catholic and no nobody thinks twice about it really maybe some people do but very few people do and you know to the degree that the mormon religion has an effect on you know living in salt lake city along the wasatch front it's going to be very similar to the effect that the christian religion has on other places that you know are dominant christian or dominant catholic or whatever and two the folks who belong to the mormon religion it's the same sort of thing as folks who belong to christian or catholic in that there are varying degrees of seriousness right which i say to sort of bring up the idea that like yeah there is these percentages of folks who belong to it but varying degrees of sort of uh i don't know i don't want to say commitment because that makes it sound bad but varying degrees of you know how they are involved in the church and how often they go and how much it impacts their lifestyle right so but really i think the question is how much does it impact your lifestyle to be here as a non-mormon right and if you're a mormon watching this i'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments if you're a non-mormon who's lived here i'd also love to hear your thoughts in the comments i'm very much of the belief of like what other people are doing with their lives has very little impact on how i choose to live my life right it's choices and things we're born into and etc and so it doesn't really overall doesn't impact me that much so let's talk about what are some of the areas that it might impact you for one and i think this is probably like the most uh universal kind of no matter who you are this could affect you in some way which is that businesses have strange hours sometimes not every business but a lot of businesses have weird hours specifically being closed on sunday so that's kind of uh it doesn't matter who you are what your lifestyle is potentially you're not going to have access to things that you might be used to on sundays but that said all of the staples that you know suburban staples for the most part are going to be available right it's typically going to be more you know smaller owned shops liquor stores stuff like that are gonna be less available on sundays and then just some other random you know random shops have just kind of odd hours where maybe you think i'm gonna go to that place you show up and you know at a two on a monday and it's just closed but i think at the end of the day that it has this much real impact on the livability of an area and there is kind of the idea that because sunday is a day of rest for the mormon religion that it's kind of easier to navigate certain things on a sunday because 48 of the population supposedly is mormon here so they're arguably going to be resting on a sunday right and not going to you know a target or a store or a restaurant etc so almost you know the religion sort of uh honoring that day of rest to whatever percentage it actually is uh makes life almost easier on a sunday for a non-mormon makes the friction less you know there's just less traffic etc although in general to me one of the things i love about salt lake is the lack of friction to do things traffic and generally just like you know density of population is not bad here compared to so many places in this country but then there are going to be some things that a lot of people just find frustrating and to me i sort of boil it down to a degree that the mormon religion has an effect on life here in salt lake in utah in general is basically all regarding vices maybe not all but largely regarding vices and the mormon religion in general they don't want the people within the religion to be partaking in vices right so drugs alcohol caffeine is considered a vice uh things like premarital sex i'm sure prostitution but that's most of the country except maybe nevada and stuff like no gambling right so within the state of utah there are going to be you know tighter laws on that but there's this idea that you can't buy alcohol or it's like you know super a dry state that is not the case at all there are great bars great breweries restaurants will sell alcohol there are liquor stores but there are weird laws that sort of apply to those things for one all liquor stores are state-owned in the state of utah which doesn't really impact your life that much unless you wanted to open a liquor store i would say specifically things like gambling and the lotto there are no casinos in the state of utah that said there is a very uh conveniently located casino in the state of nevada right on the border basically in a border town called wendover and on the west side of wendover is nevada and full of casinos on the east side is utah no casinos so there's definitely it's available also one of the closest major cities to salt lake city is vega so you're pretty close to the vice capital of the country right if potentially not the world uh but then things like lotto you can't buy a lottery ticket here i i'll tell you what i'll just go out there and say it i don't care at all about that uh i don't play the lotto i never really have i don't think it's that big of a deal but if you're into it then people go to boise for it i literally cannot imagine driving to idaho to get a lottery ticket but some people do and hey that's that's what you got to do if you want to get a lottery ticket here but i said this in my pros and cons video or things to know maybe video i don't remember but to me no lotto means no waiting for people to buy lottery tickets at a gas station which is without a doubt one of my pet peeves uh so hey i think of it kind of a kind of a nice thing there's obviously this probably goes without saying no marijuana right weed is not legal here that seems blatantly obvious but if it's not yeah there's no legal weed here you'd probably have to go to colorado would probably be the closest if you were going to partake in such a thing in a legal fashion and then specifically restaurant laws as they pertain to alcohol are a bit strange but to me it's this much of a big deal which is there are sort of two classifications of bars and restaurants and such right for one there's like a bar or like a club where you can walk in but no matter what you're going to get id'd at the door and it's 21 plus just to get into the building and then when you do that you can order a cocktail you can order a beer just straight out if you're going to a bar and restaurant where you don't have to get id'd to come in and just you know the whole population can come in if you want to order a beer or cocktail you have to order some kind of food first i don't know not a huge deal but you know it's like if you want the beer you got to do chips and salsa right something like that just to get it going and then there's one thing that i think is particularly odd although it affects me again zero is basically there's a thing called an iron curtain which is that at a bar and restaurant not again not at a bar proper or like a club but at a bar and restaurant you know bar and grill kind of thing the booze has to be behind a wall you can't advertise alcohol or beer at all like outwardly so you can't have the taps you know showing to the rest of the restaurant which is a bit odd but you know again unless you're a bartender or a server or you know somebody who wants to belly up at a buffalo wild wings then i don't know i don't think it's gonna affect you all that much there are great bars and again great breweries and distilleries but if you if that's your vibe then you have to have an id at the door to get in or yeah i don't know you just have to have some food on the table so that's kind of the section for what most people would consider a vice but like i said earlier uh caffeine is considered a vice to some sort of uh parts of the mormon religion i know mormons who definitely drink caffeine um but so there's again maybe this idea that you can't get caffeine here of course you can that's that's silly uh it's everywhere i got starbucks this morning yeah it's literally not a problem it's not there's no special laws or anything about it it's just a thing that other people do right i know people who are carnivores they only eat meat does that affect me not at all and there are great coffee shops you know like independently owned coffee shops and such you know where you can have a meeting or whatever and there's nothing weird about it as far as you know congregating or whatever within the shop socializing that kind of thing there's also a thing called the general conference which i'll be honest i don't know that much about it basically happens twice a year in april and november again if you're not a mormon i think it will affect you this much uh but potentially downtown by the temple by the you know convention center might be a little busy you know so to the degree that it will affect you i think is that is twice a year there's you know congregations basically there's also a huge you know a subsect of the mormon population that just watches it on tv so they're indoors again which means that it's pretty wide open right the your access to salt lake and to utah it's gonna feel like you're at school and there was a field trip that you didn't get to go on but there's like nobody there it'll kind of feel like a novelty but again it won't really affect your life very much i could imagine it affecting businesses to some degree but probably pretty specific case scenarios and basically mormon missionaries you're going to see them from time to time and you probably have seen them if you don't live in utah black pants white button up shirt typically name tag pretty easy to spot and usually walking around a neighborhood not many folks walk around neighborhoods wearing dress pants and a button up so pretty easy one recommendation if you are you know vehemently opposed to turning away a solicitor fundamentally would be get something get like a smart doorbell right they're cheap i mean people want them anyway but pretty easy way to passive aggressively not respond to you know being solicited to the mormon religion and i'll be honest i'm right there with you i don't want to have that conversation not really interested but it's not gonna be like this daily occurrence you know uh where you need like a gated uh gated community to avoid it or anything like that and then kind of the last thought about this is i to be honest i've had nothing but positive experiences with folks of the mormon religion i think on the whole this is very general every experience i've had they've been very nice like very warm welcoming people and even stuff like customer service seems to be better in utah than in a lot of other places to where it's just you know a niceness a friendliness and that is who can really argue with that right and also isn't some like vapid empty niceness it seems like a genuine sort of like deep-rooted you know niceness hospitality that kind of [Music] [Music] so [Music] all right my battery died so i decided to actually come to another area to sort of finish this out this right over here is draper utah temple draper is an awesome spot we have a virtual tour of draper up as well the houses up this way are insane so fun fact they're so beautiful like actual castles and honestly i think this architecture is very cool i legitimately enjoy a lot of mormon architecture i think it's kind of cool and like a minimalist kind of i don't know almost brutalist way i think that's probably not the right the right thing but uh yeah it's cool the way this temple is situated is really cool um and it to me the way i want to look at it and the way i think it's probably worth looking at it is if this was a catholic church if this was a cathedral if this was a synagogue if this was a mosque would you think twice about it and i don't think most people would right and with that said i think that's how it ought to be thought about like it's not that wildly different there's all these misconceptions about it but yeah let other people have those misconceptions and you can come here and go oh yeah okay it is awesome it is a very very livable place for a lot of reasons and then one kind of last thing right in in i was talking about how the people were nice and then my battery died but you know i look like this right i have a long hair i'm a dirty hippie but you know tattoos and whatever and i have never once been accosted or anything like that for the way that i look i have friends here who also are probably even more kind of on the alternative side of things live in salt lake city proper and they're not like outcasts right and i think that's important to know right but i will say that i think because of sort of the conservative reputation and the conservative history of utah of salt lake city the arts culture while there is one here it's maybe a little slow right it's maybe a little new and a little bit recent and it's still kind of you know getting up to the levels of other metropolitan areas and certainly you know things like tattoo culture obviously like piercing whatever body modification stuff you're not gonna find a ton of that here and you know graffiti there's not gonna be a ton of that so if you like that sort of arts culture that sort of like urbanism arts culture you're not going to find that much here but you will find some of the most beautiful you know landscapes i mean look at this look at how this place is situated just right on the wasatch mountains and draper itself there's traverse mountains basically right over here i think and it's just so beautiful so yeah what you sort of you know lose in like the hypnos the urban arts culture of maybe like something like an la or i suppose a san francisco seattle portland any any of those major west coast things even at denver you do you have beautiful outdoor spaces you have clean neighborhoods a clean downtown just a very livable place so if you are thinking about moving here get a hold of us and we would love to be the ones who help you find the right house in the right neighborhood for the right price i say this every video but i mean it especially today this is what we do and this is what we do better than anybody else so if you are interested get a hold of us you can go to our website welcome to salt lake city dot co we have a contact formula that you can fill out it will literally take moments or you can shoot us an email directly to info at welcome to saltlakecity.co uh they lead to the same inbox so it is completely up to you how you do it we have no preference and if maybe it feels a little too early of course as always if you've not done so yet subscribe to the channel and click the bell so you can get notified when we put these videos out we do our best to put out the most you know immersive honest and genuine videos anywhere on the internet about living here in salt lake city and if it feels a little too early to uh you know reach out then go ahead and follow us on instagram hang out with us there at welcome to salt lake city and hey we did it this has been just hopefully a very honest look into what it's like to live in salt lake city as a non-mormon i hope this video has been helpful and yeah look forward to seeing you look forward to meeting you and truly we look forward to showing you around this absolutely stunning place and yeah i'll see you in the next one bye [Music]

Channel: Welcome To Salt Lake City

Views: 36,076

Keywords: being non-mormon in utah, being non mormon in utah, being non-mormon in salt lake city, being non mormon in salt lake city, living in salt lake city as a non-mormon, living in utah as a non-mormon, life as a non mormon in utah, life as a non mormon in salt lake city, salt lake city vibes, living in salt lake city, moving to salt lake city, living in utah, moving to utah, utah and mormons, non mormon in utah

Id: FztQ88rP_UQ

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 05 2022