Jana–I think you are largely correct. The only exception I would make is a particular kind of person (in the minority) who perhaps comes from a largely Mormon area and in a largely non-Mormon area continues to only associate with Mormons. Very much a minority, but often present.

I respectfully disagree with your statement about friendliness vs. kindness. This sort of broad-brush is not the case everywhere. I’ve lived all over the U.S. and have experienced different regional personality norms and find that the Mormon community tends to reflect these norms. There are some that are more or less friendly, and surprise! this is how people are. I have experienced plenty of acts of kindness from my Mormon neighbors regardless of the place in which I live.

Speaking for myself, totally, I was surprised because I think of you as strong and brave. We should do lunch. Can I stay at your house when I come to New York? And we can do breakfast and lunch and dinner…and midnight snack

It just doesn’t seem like a stretch to me to look up where people live in the ward. It happens a lot that my wife will mention some family, and I don’t know where they live, and she’ll mention a street, and so then I’ll go look up the street in Google maps. If I want to know more, I’ll look up their address on lds.org.

The Church has spent a lot of tithing money to make it so that people in wards know where other people live. Is that money being wasted? I know they have plans to eventually actually *map* every address into a ward map, automatically, but in the meantime, it seems like such a low bar to cross. In our ward, we haven’t printed a formal directory in almost 2 years. We just refer people to lds.org. Until late last year, we had over 600 members, so it wasn’t like we were a tiny ward where it was easy to know where everyone lives.

I used to know where everybody lived but since I was gone for 6 months and they added new people to the ward, I don’t know a lot of people. I like to tell the new people I just got out on parole. When I can keep a straight face long enough, I really spin a yarn. Molly Mormon types are the funnest ones in that situation.

My guess is that some specific characteristics of my neighborhood that perhaps make us more likely to interact: we are semi-urban so although we live in separated houses, we are all on relatively small lots and live within walking distance of schools, businesses, town hall, the library, parks, etc. So we walk, and indeed, most of our introductions took place when we were outside already. I know the suburban neighborhoods in which I grew up were much less connected–just that little bit more lawn or driveways a bit more spread out seemed to make all the difference in actually talking to neighbors. Anyway, I dig it.

M&M–You are very right.

It IS cool, though, how your neighbors welcomed you. And of course, there are plenty of good, kind people outside the Church. But there are lots inside, too.

I’ve also never moved anywhere where people actively came and welcomed me to the neighborhood, so I think it’s pretty cool that your neighbors did that. Good for them.