The following is excerpted from the Deseret News and was written by Jacob Hess. To read the full article, CLICK HERE. 

Nina-Sophia Miralles was on her way to a pedicure after work when she was stopped by a “fresh-faced youth” who introduced himself as “Elder” even though, she said, “he had less facial hair than my grandmother.”

This 30-something journalist was asked if she had “any time to talk about God” and whether she was “free on Sunday” and had “time to come to church.” But showing all the signs of someone heading to an appointment, she was happy to hear the missionary say, “Hey, you look busy, it’s OK if you need to go.”

“Off I went to the beauty salon,” she said, “amazed that there was no speech, no preach, no pressure.”

This was the opening vignette in an in-depth article about Latter-day Saints featured last week in LONDNR, a media organization in Britain that believes the public is “ill-served” by gossip, fibs and “salacious” nonsense — promising instead to “tell wonderful stories” and “spark conversations” that help readers “escape the echo chamber that algorithms have strong-armed us into.”

The publication has a special interest in featuring “groups of people who actually do manage to find meaning and hope and community” in a world where, they say, “one of the greatest problems in the world is that there’s not enough meaning in people’s lives.”

Miralles founded the publication in 2015, and spoke to the Deseret News about her magazine’s approach and what stood out to her while writing this story. Following is a recap of eight different realizations that were “demystifying” to this journalist after spending more time with local Latter-day Saints in London.

1. Simpler and less controversial lives than media outlets portray

Jonathan Mace, a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who used to manage the Harold Pinter Theater in London, tells Miralles, “We’re a lot more boring than people expect.”

Hoping to persuade others that your people are “boring,” of course, is only appealing when the perception has gone so far in another direction. And Miralles reflects on the impact of cynical media portrayals of the faith implying rigidity (tradwives) and naivete. “I think the ‘Book of Mormon’ (musical) did a significant amount of damage,” she says.

Despite being officially 134 years in the past, polygamy also remains a continuing misperception (which “erroneous allegations” Miralles says, if true, would make the faith “weirdly woke right now”).

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.