Examples include:

• Interviews or visits with individuals or families who have unusual foreign language skills. For more than 150 years Church missionaries have left Utah to proselytize in countries around the world. Returning missionaries bring with them a deep love for the people they have lived among and served. The result is a community unusually steeped in other cultures and languages. Because of missionary service, four or five different languages may be spoken by members of a single family--an asset appreciated by businesses that have relocated here.

• A visit to Brigham Young University, the largest church-sponsored university in the United States. The 32,000 university students sign an honor code that bans premarital sex, smoking, and drinking alcohol. Nearly half the student body speaks a second language. The university offers a state-of-the-art, computer-assisted language lab with instruction in 54 languages.

• Visits to families whose way of life demonstrates why active Latter-day Saint families have a much lower incidence of breakup and teen delinquency than other families. Terms such as family home evening, family council, and parent-child interviews will be explained.

• Visits to ethnic communities. Among the early pioneer settlers who escaped religious persecution in Europe or the United States were those with a special identity, such as the Swiss community in Midway, Utah. Place-names drawn from European towns and villages abound here.

• Interviews can be arranged with Latter-day Saint bishops, men who serve without pay as they minister to congregations of several hundred people (in addition to balancing their own family duties and full-time professions). The tradition of volunteer service runs deep in Utah, where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others often render many hours of service each week in the community.

• A visit to a typical church service to see how Latter-day Saints worship and to interview members and leaders.

• A Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearsal or broadcast. The Tabernacle Choir is an American institution that has become a favorite around the world. The choir rehearses Thursday evenings in preparation for a weekly Sunday morning broadcast and other concerts and appearances.

To ask for our help in any of the above, call or e-mail us at:

Public Affairs Department
15 East South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84150

Phone: 801-240-1111
e-mail: mediahelp@ldschurch.org