St. George, Utah, was our first stop in the lovely state. It's a beautiful little town in the Southwestern region of Utah, tucked in near to the Pine Valley mountains who glisten with snow in the winters. The picturesque little town was rated the second-fasted growing metropolitan area in 2005 and by 2018 it's jumped to first place. I guess people have forgotten about all that radioactive fallout that drifted downwind from the Nevada Nuclear Test Site and fell predominantly on the area... To be fair, the last major spike in radiation seemed to sync up around the timeframe of the incident in Fukushima, so it's probably safe. Just keep an eye out for Deathclaws when you're out in those mountains...
Our first impressions of the area were that it was a cute little Southwestern small town. Further explorations helped to cement this idea more deeply, though we did witness an incident of domestic violence along the roadside next to the hotel pictured above. A man was sitting on the brick wall and a woman was slapping about his face and shouting... charming. So, it's certainly not an untainted paradise, free of human woes and suffering. The demographics veer predominantly Caucasian, with roughly 87% of the population, and almost 71% of the population are members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Given the Church's history with racism, including a rally from The Book of Mormon to be "a white and delightsome people"
( 2 Nephi 30:6
“…their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people.” - source)
and a history of excluding darker skinned members from participating in certain rituals and rites, it's not entirely surprising that the demographic veers a certain direction. The passage quoted above has since been adapted to read "pure" instead of "white", but given the recency in which the book was written, it's unlikely that a translation error occurred. Who knows. These days the LDS Church tries to paint itself as inclusive and welcoming of all members, including the LGBTQ+ on their own official website, maybe times are changing. After all, this little burb is rapidly growing and change is inevitable.
Until next time!
💖
XOXO,
NAU
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