  Monday, October 22, 2012  Hmongs and Mormons: A Window into
LDS Diversity  One of my favorite US newspapers, the Sacramento
Bee, just published a nice article about LDS diversity in
Sacramento. "Mormon church a widely diverse entity in Sacramento
region" mentions several different groups of Latter-day Saints
in the Sacramento region, including the Hmong people.  Appleton,
Wisconsin, where I lived for about 20 years, is a small town
with a surprisingly high Hmong population, around 4 or 5%. On my
first Sunday in Appleton when we moved there for the second time
in 1994, I remember being surprised by all the Asian people
sitting behind me near the back of the Church, speaking what
sounded like Chinese but wasn't. I had taken a few classes of
Chinese way back at BYU and strained to catch a few recognizable
words, but it was definitely a different language. I would soon
learn that they were immigrants from Laos who had paid a
terrible price for supporting the United States during the
Vietnam War. It's a long sto