So-called "experiences" about courting/marrying non-believers

by Gopher 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Gopher

  I don?t remember exactly where in JW-land I heard these experiences, but I believe they were passed around through word of mouth rather than through assemblies or publications. Urban legends? You decide.

  Experience #1

  Faithful JW girl is dating a fellow who is studying (or was recently baptized) in order to win her love rather than because he believes JW doctrine. After JW girl and her boyfriend conclude a morning of field service, they?re both carrying their bookbags as they walk on a path near a lake. Suddenly, JW girl heaves her bookbag into the lake saying, "I am through with the JW?s and all this field service!" The boyfriend then heaves HIS bookbag into the lake too, saying "I?m so glad you feel the same way I do!"

  The JW girl has discovered (through this trick) that he really doesn?t love Jehovah, he just wanted her. She stops dating him, and continues on as a faithful JW ? glad she discovered her boyfriend?s "real" motives.

  Comment: What if the boyfriend did NOT throw his bookbag into the lake, too? What if he just looked at her in shock? What would the girl have done then? Would she have said ? "Oh sorry, I was just testing you"?

  Experience #2

  Faithful JW girl is engaged to a fellow who was recently baptized in order to win her love rather than because he believes JW doctrine. He attends the meetings, goes in service, does all the things that are expected of a new JW.

  Then comes the wedding day at the Kingdom Hall. At the conclusion of the ceremony, as they were about to exit the hall, he told his faithful JW bride, "Turn around and look at the hall, because it?s the last time we?ll see the inside of a Kingdom Hall."

  Comment: How dramatic an "experience" was that?
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  blondie

  These are definite urban legends. The fact that I have never heard them used in print or from an assembly/convention platform is a clue to their inability to confirm them.

  Blondie (who laughed the first time she heard them)
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  Junction-Guy

  Hi all, as for experience# 1, It wouldnt have been funny if he was serious about his beliefs and thenhe took her statement to the elders, she would have felt like a moron then.

  As for experience#2, I believe I heard this from the platform of the kingdom hall, and I believe i remember which cong I was in at the time and approximate year
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  Joker10

  I've heard of Exp #1, but they only had the Bible.

  Exp #2L The man wanted to marry the sister badly. The sister, not interested, and not knowing how to get him off her shoulders told him that she wasn't going to marry him until he gets baptized. He then later becomes a Witness and then asks her again. Knowing he was baptized, and now not knowing what to say to get rid of him, she tells him that she won't marry him until he gets into the Ministerial Servant position. He goes to Mexico promising to return. She doesn't hear from him in a while. But he comes back and as a MS. The autirorium speaker goes on to say that who knows how he did it to be one. "I've done it. I'm baptized and I'm a Ministerial Servant", he says."I' haven't forgetten you and the promise i made to you. Now keep yours and marry me." Well finally she said 'okay' (very exciting) at that moment. Wedding day: After both saying 'I do', he tells her '"Turn around and look at the hall, because it?s the last time you?ll see the inside of a Kingdom Hall."
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  Gopher

  Joker10,

  Thanks for posting those renditions. I'm sure as these experiences made the rounds, small details were altered. It's been years since I heard the experiences, so I'm sure I don't remember them exactly as they were told to me (not that it makes a huge difference -- it's the THOUGHT that counts, right?).
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  Nina

  I heard these in the early '80's while out in field service. They are "car group" experiences, what you talk about while waiting in the car for your turn at a door. I heard that these things happened "right here in our circuit!". It was always the next congregation over, or someone knew someone in the congregation where it happened.

  Same with the smurf stories; I was told in good faith by one of my very best JW friends that her JW neighbor's friend's daughter talked with the smufs who jumped down off the wallpaper once the parents left the room. When I asked to have a chat with the parents of this afflicted child it seemed no one knew exactly which family it was.

  I have another story to add to the urban collection. There was a pioneer sister in my congregation (yes, my real congregation and yes I knew this sister) who had spent years in the entertainment industry including touring with Bob Hope. As a parting gift he allegedly gave her a ring. I saw the ring, it was a huge thing. Well, one day she was out in service, chatting with some person at a door, and the person said "I'm not interested in what you have to say but I sure would like to know how you afforded that ring!" She supposedly took off the ring right then and threw it away in the nearest dumpster. She didn't want anything to interfere with people responding to the "good news". Did she really do it? I don't know! She was just wacky enough to do something like that! I didn't ask and I didn't watch to see if the ring ever reappeared. So there you have it, the legend of the $10,000 ring!

  Now back to your regularly scheduled courting/wedding stories.

  Nina
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  Nocturne

  I heard of experience #1 before with a slight variation. The elders counselled her to test him to see if he really believed it was the "truth".
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  gespro

  Never heard Experience #1

  Did hear #2 in the late 70's not from the platform, though.
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  AuSet

  Hi, Goph...

  I've heard #1 almost word for word, maybe back in the late eighties? Must've been flyin around the MN circuits at that time. Haven't ever heard of #2, though.

  Funny how those taboos about marrying nonbelievers always stay there. I'm getting married this summer to a wonderful man who treats me 1000% times better than any witness guy...and my mom still says to me...

  "Well, he doesn't love jehovah."

  "Neither do I, mom, where have you been for the last 10 years!"

  Nina, the smurf story about "jumping out of the wallpaper" was also told to me by my mother, and she named the local family that it had happened to. What possesses people to make up this crap?
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  XQsThaiPoes

  I like tales like this. Anyone get the morals of the stories don't date JWs.

  Seriously these are not to keep JW from courting non believers in both stories these are JW's. It is to keep JWs from courting period. Because if it happens to them it can happen to YOU!

  I also notice the WTS backing down on telling you who to marry. Not marring an "unbeliever" is just a bad idea instead of a sin. Technically it only applies to pagans, but I doubt the WTS wants to people to think that because the more nonjw friends and family you have the less peer pressure at the hall works. Considering the sheep and goat recant thiz another hole in docterine.

  Actually anyone every try to baptize their unbelieving mate in a kiddie pool to piss people off?

  BTW I have heard the line "Turn around and look at the hall, because it?s the last time we?ll see the inside of a Kingdom Hall." before but not the story. Maybe I was too young to remember it.