One day during the Olympics, a man and his wife from Texas stepped off the bus in downtown Salt Lake City and asked directions from anyone who would listen. A small group of people quickly huddled and offered instructions.

After taking several steps toward their destination, the lady turned back and with a smile said, "People sure are friendly here."

With the Olympic flame now extinguished and residents along the Wasatch Front heaving a collective sigh of joy and satisfaction, three themes are emerging from those who attended the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; namely, the beauty of the area, the cleanliness of the city, and the friendliness of the people.

"Those I drive to the airport usually talk about the nice people," said an Olympic volunteer on a radio talk show.

A journalist from Romania called his brother at home one evening to jokingly say that his face was hurting from all the smiling he was doing.

"In Salt Lake, the world has found a gracious and welcoming host, where many had thought only to find an insular and judgmental society," stated an article in the Christian Science Monitor.

The ability of Utah residents to host an international event was questioned by various media prior to the Olympics. "Would the world come gladly to a state whose dominant religion asks members to abstain from alcohol, tobacco and even caffeine?" queried one columnist.

But come they did, and while some visitors may have been hesitant and a bit skeptical at first, most soon found Utah to be a friendly place.

"It's not at all like I thought it would be," said a retired bus driver from Ft. Worth, Texas, who volunteered for the Salt Lake Games. "This place is actually normal," he said, explaining how he found Utah people to be delightful and the scenery exquisite.

"You are good people, nice people," said Rolf Becker, who is something of an unofficial mascot for his native German Olympic teams. "They are good to you here. I have seen how hospitable you are. It is more than I expected."

Public assessment of the Games stems, in part, from interaction of the visitors with the army of volunteers.

IOC President Jacques Rogge — who is Belgian — called it "striking" that so many of the volunteers who "obviously are Mormons" have learned a foreign language while serving a mission for the Church.

He said that was a factor in the success of the Games.

"What I have found here is that the knowledge of foreign languages by volunteers was extremely high," he said in comments to Deseret News, noting many of his colleagues made the same observation.

"I have been greeted at many venues in Dutch, which is not a universally known language, [but it is] my mother language, at least 20 times by different volunteers who told me, 'I have been on a mission in your country.' "

Members near the Soldier Hollow venue in Summit County refer to a comment made by President Henry D. Moyle of the First Presidency in 1963 during the rededication of the Midway meetinghouse.

"The world will come here," he said, "and [they] will sense that they're in a different environment and a different spirit, and a friendliness and a hospitality exists here among Latter-day Saints that was not cultivated overnight."

E-mail: shaun@desnews.com