NO, IT WAS NOT UTAH

Twice a year, church for us Mormons is televised from Salt Lake City. Extremely dedicated members will still dress up, go to the chapel to sit on uncomfortable metal folding chairs in the midst of the wildly echoing cultural hall and watch the broadcast.

But since these are usually the same people who frown at Diet Coke, chocolate, and shorts that end above your kneecap, I watch from the comfort of my home and my pajamas, with the cat on one side and my new iPhone on the other.

Most people in the U.S. are vaguely acquainted with someone who is LDS - this woman they worked with - a cousin who joined the Church - and isn't that cashier at Safeway one of them?

Certain associations always seem to pop up - BYU, polygamy, and aren't y'all Republicans?

But one of these links has been used several times in the last month, and has gotten under my skin enough that I am writing about it.

"The Mormons settled in Utah," "Mormons colonized Utah," and "Mormons fled to Utah in the 1846."

NO, THEY DIDN'T. They settled in MEXICO. 

Members of the church had an extermination order placed  on their heads (which interestingly enough, was not rescinded until 1976) in Missouri (and was based on a whole LOT of misinformation on BOTH sides) - so they weren't simply moving out of town...

THEY WERE LEAVING THE COUNTRY.