Making Mormon friends everywhere I go

I went to a conference in Hong Kong. Its almost over. I have made friends. However, the connections I have instantly upon entering a country because I am LDS should never been discounted. I’ve been to church in dozens of countries, and in most every city in the US I have been to. Almost every time I have gone to church in another country or city I have either known several people there, or been connected in another way. Besides the fact that religion connects us, my global church community really does make it feel like it is a small world. I had lunch at my old roommates house today.  I am eating dinner with a new friend tonight who met my other old roommate in DC two weeks ago. I’m going shopping with a woman from Alaska tomorrow who was at the conference and is LDS. I think I may have one of the best networks available to me by being a member of my church. Say what you will about specific religious beliefs I hold, but my church has an outstanding welfare program globally, supports the largest women’s organization in the world, and advocates for family values.  I can walk into any LDS church in the world (which I do often), and leave with friends, dinner appointments, social engagements, and get help in any other way I need. At home, my local congregation can offer me support in every aspect of my life. They will move my furniture when I move, they can finance the education of poor students in congregations around the world, and the focus is never on the status or popularity of my clergy person, because service in the church is voluntary and who your clergy is changes every few years. What is stable is that every congregation in every part of the world is learning the same principles under the same organization.

Seeing other NGOs around the world, other welfare systems, other women’s societies, other scholarship funds, other social networking systems at this conference and around the world makes me appreciate that there is something good and right about my membership in the church. Besides being religiously supportive of me, it needs my needs, and attempts to do the same of its congregations.