1. I Can Dance: OK not me personal - other than the Mormon two step - but as a group we can dance! Didn't Donny Osmond win Dancing with the Stars? Don't let the fact that Footloose was filmed in the heart of Mormondom fool you. We can and do dance. I was taught to waltz, swing, square-dance and slam dance all at church activities. And though these dancing lessons brought me to a realization that I should go into engineering; for others it took. With dancing in church activities and Stake dances every couple of months, it is no wonder BYU's ballroom dance team wins the NDCA championship every year. Though I still have regrets that we haven't been able to convert Kevin Bacon.
2. I Can Show 'em How to Party: How much of the world begins an evening out by saying "I need a few drinks to loosen up first." Only after some chemical plying can most people let loose. Mormons, however, don't have that little crutch to use. We still get out there and have a good time, but the 'crazy' is all on us. And we do have a great time. We dance, we do karaoke, we tell dumb stories, we hit on girls, we do things that begin with the saying "Dude watch this…". And we have a great time, a small bar tab, and the next morning we wake up and say "holy smokes" (because we don't swear either), "I can't believe I did that. Funny." So if you are ever at a work karaoke party and no one is inebriated enough to sing first, go find a Mormon. They will get up there and might even dance too.
3. I Can Be Carefree: No life is ever really completely carefree, but as a Mormon there are some large worries of the world that never cross the mind of most Mormons. I have never had that moments pause when I receive the results of an AIDS screening at the Red Cross blood drive. I have never heard someone say, "You won't believe what you did last night" (unless this recounting includes tale of how I received a concussion at a party). I have never worried that one day I would get a call from a daughter I never knew about. I have never had to write down the number of a DUI attorney. I have never worried about pictures showing up of me at the work Christmas party that might cost me my job... unless I was doing the Mormon-Two-Step of course. No one wants to see that.
4. I Can Play That: For reasons unknown and to the dread of most kids, Mormon families deem it important to play musical instruments. And while we complain about having to practice as kids, it never ceases to amaze me that in any single congregation, you can pull together a full Christmas musical program with plenty of talent untapped. The little unassuming house wife next door may be a concert violinist or your Mormon doctor may have paid the bills during medical school tickling the ivories at weddings. Such a pool of talent gave a nice little 'in-your-face-moment' when the Utah Symphony began to up its demands to accompany the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in concert. The Church simply said "Fine we'll form our own Orchestra." They did, The Temple Square Orchestra. Plenty of talent, and they work for free too.
5. I Can Sing the National Anthem: For whatever reason, we all know it. We stand up, place our hands on our hearts and sing - we even try to hit that high note too. I am not sure if we are patriotic or just trying to apologize to the nation for the mauling that the anthem took that the hands of Roseanne Barr - who was raised part Mormon. We apologize profusely.
6. I Can Give that Speech: While most Americans are more afraid of public speaking than death, Mormons are generally not among them. By the time we are in college we have "given the sermon" to hundreds of people several times over. In fact once a month, we jockey for position to VOLUNTARILY stand up in-front of scores of people in our congregation and give a little impromptu talk. We even have to hold back our "littluns" because once one of them gets up, they swarm and only occasionally does one of them freeze up like Ralphie on Santa's lap. So when you are in law school and have to present your Moot Court case to the class and judges your thinking, "Only 40 people, I got this... just remember not to end with 'In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.'"7. I Can Translate That: I am also always reminded of that scene in the movie Airplane where the elderly lady raises her hand offering to translate by confidently affirming "Stewardess, I speak Jive." Whatever the language is, your odds are pretty high you can find a translator in a group of Mormons - though admittedly Jive might be hard to find. With two year missions all over the world, we have languages coming out the ears... or maybe its out the mouth, not sure about that saying anyway. I've met Mormons who speak Icelandic, Aymara, Navajo, Hmong, Mandarin, Mongolian, Bostonian etc. In fact, years ago enough of the BYU basketball player spoke Spanish that they communicated in Spanish during the game. A bunch of blonde hair, blue eyed gringos speaking Spanish will certainly throw off the other team's game rhythm.
8. I Can Shoot that Hoop: A friend of mine long ago expressed his belief that the Mormon Church was God's Church was confirmed by the presence of a basketball court in virtually every chapel (and if your congregation was more righteous, it would be full court with wood floors and a breakaway hoop). We don't have the problem of kids stealing their parents booze; we have the problem of kids steeling their parents' church keys to sneak INTO church on a weekday evening to shoot around. Really, how many parents do you know who call their kids, not knowing where the are, to find out that they are actually at church. It also forms a nice foundation for proselytizing in the inner city:
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