Hi Mary, and welcome to the discussion board! I also was a 3rd-generation JW, made it as far as ministerial servant, took it quite seriously.
As far as the "statue toes" prophecy -- all I can say is that, looking back, the WTS has changed its mind about the interpretation of Daniel so many times. For example, in their 1958 book "Your Will Be Done on Earth", they said that the Communist powers (such as the USSR which was the biggest threat back then) would survive as the "king of the north" all the way to the end of the system, and that God's people (JW's) would be continually be persecuted by such powers up until the end! Now that Communism has fallen and the JW's do have their freedom in most of the former Soviet countries, you can see they were guessing.
They have no idea who the king of the north is now. So how can they have any idea about what the legs, feet, and toes of the statue really mean?
The JW's in this century have thought that the following were signs of the sudden end: The 9/11 attacks in 2001, Hurricane Katrina, and the Indian Ocean killer tsunami of 2004. Yet none of these terrible events brought the "end".
The "end" has supposedly been near ever since you and I were little kids, and for JW's the end will continue to be near for decades to come.
Nations rise and nations fall, the world will continue on, and there will always be world-end-prophesiers. It's all part of the scene. It doesn't mean the prophesies are anywhere near true.