When friends and families first spoke to me after my move to Utah, the first thing they asked was what it was like living among all the Mormons. I had to ponder the question, but only for a moment.

I recalled that during the first few days there, I was accosted by a gang of Mormons. Three young men in suits gathered around me and asked if I wanted to give a fast offering. Being from the East, I am always ready to say no to any question and so I did, tensed for flight. They said thank you and walked away, stalking their next victim I suppose.

After that encounter, I maintained a wary eye. I found it difficult to pick out the Mormons in a crowd as they have disguised themselves and have assimilated the dress of the local population.

What I did find out was that even though they can disguise their physical appearance, they can’t hide their native tongue. When irritated, normal folks will let out a string of common swear words. Mormons will say strange things like “Golly.” They can also be identified in heavy traffic as the ones who don’t display non-verbal greetings.

I often found groups of unattended children roaming the neighborhood in packs. Were they Mormon? They looked both ways before crossing the street. They held the hands of the little ones. They hurried as they crossed. They carried no boom boxes. Surely they came from some other planet.

I could always tell when I was driving in a Mormon neighborhood as they were very uninviting. There were no yard sales for picking up cool second-hand junk. There were no cars on blocks where I could find spare parts. They appeared very snooty as all the lawns were mowed and manicured. I could have been in Beverly Hills.

Being outnumbered in the land of Mormons, I decided my best course of action was to infiltrate their tight circle and see if I could expose their plan for world domination. I was ‘adopted’ by an unsuspecting family. Sure that they would try to lure me into their faith, I accepted their invitations to dinner and accompanied them to family functions, always prepared for the onslaught of recruitment. The wily devils never approached me in that manner. Perhaps they were lulling me into a false sense of security by plying me with traditional Mormon food. I gained no weight. They may do some things well, but food won’t be one of their methods of entrapment.

They appeared to know each other in great numbers even while disguised. I spent Halloween evening with my ‘family’ and watched as they greeted every costumed trick-or-treater by name. I thought I had it figured out when they kept referring to their ‘ward.’ Ah ha! Mental patients. But as it turned out, a ward was the particular church they attended.

I became determined to find a crack in this armor of this ‘family-neighbor-church’ philosophy. I brought hot coffee into their homes. The children were curious, the parents shrugged. I tried to lure them to the casinos in the West. We all went. I invited them to an R-rated movie. It cost me $108.08 for tickets.

I finally broke and asked them outright about their plans to take over the world.

“Plans?” they asked. “No plans. It’ll happen on its own.”

“Why haven’t you tried to recruit me?” I asked.

“You drink coffee, took us to R-rated movies, and casinos,” they said. “You’re a good friend but we don’t think you’re Mormon material.”

Glenn Parkhurst moved to Stansbury Park in 2003 from the East Coast and uses his observations while living in Tooele County to inspire his writing.