Okay, this post is really for Summer, who is making the big grad school decision along with her family. But I thought I'd go ahead and share with everyone. Maybe others can add to my list (or give me a reality check as the case may be).
1. You can stop referring to everywhere outside Utah, Arizona and Idaho as "the mission field." It's just a place where people live. Perhaps this is just a pet peeve of mine, but why is Utah
not part of the mission field? Shouldn't people there do missionary work too? Anyway, you will learn firsthand that being outside areas of high LDS concentration is nothing like being on a mission. And you can get over the impression that Utah is Zion, or anything like unto it. Living somewhere else just broadens your perspective on the world.
2. All the apostles do it. Okay, of the fifteen men currently in the Quorum of the Twelve and First Presidency, only twelve have spent significant non-mission time outside Utah. But 80% isn't bad. And they all seem to have survived and perhaps even been enriched by it. So the chances that your husband will become an apostle are much better if you leave Utah than if you stay. =) Um...do you need another reason?
3. There are more thrift stores than just Deseret Industries, and they're not nearly as picked over. Great cheap stuff (good for grad students). People also tend to give great stuff away because unlike Provo, not quite everyone is completely financially destitute.
4. Develop social skills. You learn to make friends other ways than church, and you make new friends who you haven't known since Junior High. It's pretty great.
5. Meaningful choice and a nice helping of courage. You can always go back to Utah. But when you do, it will be because you made an informed decision, not because you're afraid to try anything else.
6. You might just like it. In fact, you might discover an area of the country where you'd like to stay. You might find somewhere you
prefer to Utah, or you might decide to try out another new location.
7. If you or your husband ever wants a job in a different part of the country, the potential employer is much more likely to believe you when you claim that you're willing to move there. Mormons everywhere are notorious for quitting and moving back to Utah at the earliest possible convenience. Going to school somewhere else might give some credibility to your assertion that you're willing to live anywhere.
8. Opportunities to serve. Most other places in the country have smaller wards and even branches. They need people to help, so it's very easy to get involved and feel like you're making a genuine contribution. Church becomes more about what you can give rather than just what you can get.
9. Learn to appreciate temples more. Everyone who thinks a twenty minute drive to the temple is far should be required to make at least one all-day temple trip in their lifetime. No, not staying there all day, driving there for half the day, staying for one session, then driving back home for half the day. You'll never take for granted again the fact that most people in Utah can see one or two temples from their front door. Here, we're lucky to see a temple once a month. It may sound like a disadvantage, but I do think it makes you view the temple in a whole different light.
10. There's less competition at grad schools other than BYU. It's true that Mormons tend to be crazy motivated. They all feel intense pressure to keep up and be amazing, and it makes them into what we call "gunner" students. They're not usually fun classmates. In fact, they're often mean. It's actually kind of nice when your classmates aren't all trying to support families or be Mr. Amazing. They also don't have the advantage of a stay-at-home wife supporting them. You also get the bonus that a lot of them go out drinking quite often, so their study productivity is down (significantly). That makes a great environment to compete in. Taking a mental break once a week is also very good for studying stamina. The Sabbath is amazing!
11. Diversity. Meet people who look at the world differently from you. Learn to tolerate them, and see how nice it is to have them tolerate you. You can even become friends. It's often refreshing to live in a place where everyone isn't trying to be exactly the same, even if many of them are working toward the same goals. People also have much different backgrounds, which is fascinating and enriching. You can learn about other ways of looking and life and it will irrevocably change the way you look at life.
12. Good food. Along with all that diversity come restaurants with great things to eat.
13. Enrich the world! As James' uncle likes to say: Mormons are like cow pies. If you pile them all together, they stink. If you spread them out, they turn everything green.
14. Now is the perfect time. If you hate it and feel that the only place you could possibly raise your family is in Utah, you'll get back there before your kids are old enough to be messed up by their experience elsewhere. They probably won't be in school yet, and they'll be too young to really be scarred by the experience. This is a perfect time to move your family around, try new things and have adventures before there are a lot of roots to pull out (for your children anyway; root pulling in your own life is probably not a bad thing).
15. Freedom to be who you want. When you move to a completely different place, you can be whoever you want to be. No one has any set notion of who or what you are, so you can define yourself however you like. Stupid, but effective example: James grew a beard when we moved here, and no one has any idea that he really never had it before. For our Madison friends, it's part of James (or was until he shaved it off last month), even though it was really just something new he wanted to try. It's an opportunity to reinvent yourself, try new things, or just get out of everyone's old ideas of what you are.
16. See a different place. There are so many fun things to do when you move to a new area of the country. Think of all the wonderful things you can explore. You'll find great places to visit, wherever you end up.
17. BYU is everywhere. If you think you'll miss Provo too much, don't worry! There are BYU grads everywhere, especially wherever there's a grad school. You can all get together and reminisce about how great the food at the Canon Center was, or whatever it is you BYU people do. Many still get together often and talk about how much they miss Utah and how they can't wait to get back. While I don't think this approach is optimal, you really don't have to leave it behind all that much.
18. Technology. Living far from "home" has never been better! Webcams are wonderful, skype is free, blogs are amazing, email is convenient and cell phones are affordable. You can very easily stay in touch with everyone you love at minimal cost. Your parents can even still read stories to your children, if they'll sit still for it.
19. Share the Joy! For all of my ranting about the whole "mission field" label, it is much easier to do missionary work if you know people who aren't LDS, and that's much easier when more people aren't than are. So, in the end you will have more opportunities to share the Gospel. And that's a good thing.
20. Learn that a good Relief Society lesson has basically nothing to do with the centerpiece. My mother is still horrified that we don't even use centerpieces here in Wisconsin. They didn't use them in Virginia either. Leaving Utah is a great way to learn how to simplify and shed glorified traditions that aren't really doctrine and don't necessarily serve any essential function.
21. Personal growth. It's hard. I'm not going to lie to you. And sometimes, especially in the beginning, it's lonely. But life isn't always blissful, even if you do live in Utah. However, you DO learn a lot about yourself and about the world. It's worth it.
22. Community building. You will be able to enrich whatever place you end up more by having lived outside it than you can with limited perspective.
23. Better travel. You will establish networks with people throughout the country (grad students end up everywhere). Then, when you want to go on vacation later, you know someone in all those places and you can stay with them for free.
I'm amazed how many of these are spiritually based. I didn't anticipate that. I'm sure it would be easy to come up with an equally long list of reasons to stay where you are, but I think these are worth considering at least. It's scary sometimes, but more often it's wonderful. So come on out to "the mission field!" Whether you head right back to Zion or not, you'll be glad you at least came and tried it out.
Yes, it's true that James and I met and fell in love in the state of Virginia. We lived there for the first two years of our married life. We loved it. I want to move back there. I must confess that sometimes I play "Shenendoah" on my my iTunes and just sit with my eyes closed and dream of still being there with the beautiful flowering springs, the firefly-filled summer evenings, the warm wonderful people, the misty mornings, the trees and the porch swings.
HOWEVER...our daughter was not named for that Virginia. She was named after this Virginia:
This is Virginia Rand Shelley, who is James' grandmother and whom we like even more than the state of Virginia. It would seem she likes us too, since she came to visit this weekend. Or maybe she was checking out the baby to be sure her namesake is up to snuff. They seem to have gotten along quite well. And we hope Virginia grows up to be more like her great-grandmother than the state where her parents met (even though there are good things about both).
...it's this one (or, more accurately, her literary counterpart).
I was reading the book right after Virginia was born, she had on some overalls one day, and the nickname was born. We couldn't very well call her Atticus, could we?
Me on Friday night, super excited to be 37 weeks along. I was having a hard time being serious while James took my picture.
