I have shared that I have made some friends recently who are not members of the church. This seems easy for me to do, lately. Sometimes, I feel like I’m surrounded by more non-members than I am members. But, like I’ve said before, I’ll take a friend no matter which way they come, LDS or not.
My husband recently went to a stake priesthood leadership meeting. In that meeting, they were told that there are roughly 10,000 members of the church living in our stake. Of that 10,000 there are roughly 3,000 on the rolls, and only about 1,700 that are active in and attending their meetings regularly. So, that means that you can bet that only about 2 or so out of every 10 of my neighbors will be active members of the church. For living in a place like Salt Lake City, that is astonishing! While I never wanted my kids to be in a sea of mormons here, it would be nice if we weren’t so much the minority.
But, with that comes the chance to share our beliefs. My new friends that I’ve made recently have asked me from time to time about my beliefs. I’m happy to share with them. They have asked me questions related to anything from the word of wisdom to keeping the sabbath day holy. It is nice that they feel comfortable enough to ask me. I am certainly not the only mormon that they know. In fact, I know that they interact with quite a few around here. But, instead of going to those people and asking them, they feel more comfortable asking me for some reason. And, I’m glad for that! I like sharing my beliefs with people, and I like dispelling rumors.
One of my friends asked me if it was “a thing” that mormon kids couldn’t play with non-members. This made me sad because I know there are some members of the church out there like that. Fortunately, I figured out from the conversation that it was a Sunday that they were inviting a mormon friend to come play, and it turned out that it was all innocent, and the family just didn’t allow playdates on Sundays. I explained the types of activities that we allow and don’t allow for our kids on Sundays, and it made sense to her. It also made her feel more at ease about her neighbor that she has invited to come play.
I never thought that moving back to Utah would allow me more opportunities to share the gospel than in other places I have previously lived, but it has. Utah is growing all the time, especially in the Salt Lake valley. I feel like it is so important to continue to be a friend to all of those around us, whether mormon or not so that they will look back and say one day, “I had a mormon friend once, and I really liked her.”