I have to stop here and ?go back? to the events that occurred in the Summer of 1988 before I moved to California that October, because something very critical to the series of spiritual events to come happened in July, 1988. When I contacted the Governing Body by phone, the elder on the phone told me, not only to contact the elders and tell them I?d contacted the Gov. Body and they?d have to wait for the GB?s decision, but he also advised me to sit down and chronicle the visions and transformations in detail and send it to them in a letter. Between July 10, 1988 and July 19, 1988, I did just that, dating the letter accordingly. I gave copies to each of the elders in my congregation and kept one for myself, packing it in my suitcase before leaving for California in October, 1988. Yall don?t forget those dates now, ?cause they?re very important to the story.
Spring and Summer, 1990
First I?ll just give yall a brief rundown on the sequence of events before and after the car accident to kinda fill out the story......
Did I mention that after making a fool of myself over "Wayne Weird", I changed congregations? Well it wasn?t just because I?d been acting like a jackass and was embarrassed and needed a change....you see, my 12 yr old son was wanting very much to be baptized and had been working very hard, going out in field service all the time and studying real hard. The elders from Ash Street KH wouldn?t accept his efforts. They couldn?t convincingly say why in the face of my showing them from the scriptures that their requirements for baptism were unscriptural, but at one point the real "Circus Serpent" was visiting our KH and happened to expound on parents wanting to get their children baptized and called it "nepotism" (and I?m thinking to myself, ?gee, does that make Jehovah a nepotist, too??)....this was from the podium at a meeting in the KH....in front of the whole congregation....that and what one of the elders (Bengal was his name) did to my son one morning were the catalysts that moved me to change to the congregation that had moved into the KH on Iris Lane...the new Assembly Hall was there, too.
What had Bengal done? One morning, my son, who?d elicited a promise from Bengal to pick him up for field service, went out to the apartment complex parking lot in the cold, cold rain with nothing but his suit jacket on and waited for an hour and forty-five minutes to be picked up. When he came back in crying his little heart out, I was shocked ?cause I thought he was already out in field service. Oh, Bengal had shown up all right.....he?d left his "showboat" of a car in the KH parking lot and ridden over squeezed into a small to mid-sized car with a buncha pioneers and told my son they didn?t have room for him.... "Sorry!" After that, my son would never feel the same about wanting to get baptized or being a witness again. It broke his heart.....and mine, too.
By this time, I had been evicted from our two-bedroom apartment and moved (helped by the Renterias) into a studio apartment on Washington Ave. And we wound up waffling back and forth between the KH on Ash and the one on Iris Lane, because I had actually been closer to Iris Lane when I lived in the 2-bedroom apt. and changed there and was rebuffed when I had asked for help from the Iris Lane KH elders.....and when I moved into the "crackerbox" studio on Washington Ave., I wound up being much closer to the KH on Ash Street....(getting glum here just thinking about it).
I recall that one time that summer, while we were living on Washington Ave., I began really missing the rolling thunder and crackling lightning of thunderstorms back on the coastal plains of Texas. Since we?d been in California, the only rain we?d seen was a soft misting....you couldn?t even hear the drops of rain fall they were so small. So I talked to Jehovah about it and one night not long after, my son and I were shocked from our sleep by a crack of lightning so loud, I thought it was a BOMB going off.....we were suddenly in the middle of a So. Cal. lightning storm that surpassed anything we?d ever seen before.....there was no rain....only wind and hard peels of thunder and outrageous lightning bolts that scared the poo out of both of us. We were so relieved when it was over that I opted to never ask Jehovah for THAT again.
Anyway, from October thru November, 1988, I wrote a series of three letters to the Governing Body, telling them about my son?s efforts to get baptized and being turned down for no good reason. I had been urged, once again, to "reinforce power very much", but the first letter that I mailed, I had some difficulty getting the postal clerk to take it. She was very adamant that for some reason (I can?t remember what now) it couldn?t be mailed.....wait....now I remember....I had very little money....and the envelope was very heavy....not enough postage....I didn?t have enough change to cover it.....I went back home to search for pennies, but found none.....so I returned to the post office to beg if I had to.....there was another nicer postal clerk at the counter....when she heard my dilemma, she advised me to send it at a lower rate of postage and since it was so bulky, she mailed it at the "book rate", for which I had the funds to cover the postage. :)
Anyway, the Gov. Body responded to my three letters, and even though I outlined all the scriptural proof that the WTS criteria for baptism was unscriptural, they grew progressively "cooler" and haughty in their responses (3 of ?em), finally dismissing my "cause" as irrelevant to them for they were too busy with Kingdom work to continue the correspondence (and especially because they couldn?t disprove what I?d given as evidence, though they wouldn?t admit to it).
That Winter of 1990/1991, our AFDC had to be "renewed", because I was still not in good enough shape to return to work. The reason for my poor physical condition is that my "sore back" from the car accident turned out to be 8 compressed discs (L4, L5 & S1 ?slipped?) in my back, extending from my cervical spine to the coccyx (neck to tailbone). Also, the neurosurgeon I was seeing, determined that I was fit to return to work at this time. When I blasted him with a lot of "WHY?s???" and a lot of valid reasons for why not, he put in his report that I was "emotionally labile".....this from a doctor who wore a toupee and had a shiny red Porsche, with vanity plates that read "CRANI".....well....I bought a 26" pink beach cruiser at the Swap Meet there in Escondido and then I had transportation and could actually get to work at a Convalescent Hospital farther up Washington Ave. If yall?re wondering how I could ride a bicycle with my back in such poor condition, it?s because, even though I couldn?t bend or lean over without a lot of pain, I could brace myself on the handlebars as I rode and relieve the stress on my spine that way. It took a lot of pressure off my spine.
During the "renewal" period, the AFDC funds were late getting to me and once again we were evicted from our apartment. Someone found us a small two-bedroom house on 7 th Street, right around the corner from a broad avenue (the same one that Iris Lane abutted farther up the road)...and the Renterias helped us move once again.....and we began attending the Iris Lane KH regularly at that point, but our attendance there was fixing to change.
While we attended there, an older sister in the congregation "buddied up" to us and began paying us regular visits at home and taking us out in field service and to the meetings. (This is the same one to whom my son confided the story about "trumpet butt".) I vaguely wondered ?why??, but dismissed my concerns as unimportant. She would "pop in" for visits at our home. (What was she trying to find...and why?) I was still trying to help my son get baptised, even though his heart was no longer in it. One night at a meeting, I noticed that both the P.O.?s wife and this older sister went to the restroom during the meeting, one right after the other. And while perusing the scriptures as I sat there in the KH, one of the scriptures that referred to someone deceptive, telling lies nearly leaped off the page at me. I don?t recall the exact words, but I jumped up from my seat, knowing it had something to do with their going to the bathroom almost at the same time, and I went to the bathroom, too. When I entered the door, there were the two of ?em, the older sister?s lips smackdab up against the P.O.?s wife?s ear, whispering....she had such a wicked gleam in her eyes....and they both jumped back from each other when I entered and each one gave me a big phoney smile....and quickly departed.
The next time that the older sister took us out in field service, I confronted her about the incident in the bathroom and she admitted that the P.O. had her befriend us in order to spy on us.....I never could find out exactly why....and I wasn?t doing anything but working and studying and going out in field service and attending meetings. At the next meeting we attended, the P.O. also turned my son down for baptism....again. And during that period of time, he also gave a disfellowshipping talk that would have singed your ear hairs.....He stood up there at the podium and graphically described in a very denigrating manner....all the sights, sounds and smells of the acts of fornication that a young pioneer sister had engaged in to get herself disfellowshipped.....as she sat there in the middle of the KH and loudly sobbed her heart out. My son and I were SO totally disgusted at the P.O.(wanting to hurl) to the point that we would have gotten up in the middle of the P.O.?s discourse and exited the KH if our butts hadn?t been plastered to our seats by deeply-ingrained WTS teachings that prevented us from making a scene. Later, I regretted that I hadn?t given the "full Monty" (mooned) to the P.O. as we left in the middle of his df?ing talk.
This was the catalyst that caused me to change congregations once again.....to the Lake Hodges Congregation at 1331 Orange St. (at the time)....which was much closer to where I was living in the two bedroom bungalow on 7 th .....and from which congregation I made my Exodus from the WTS, after meeting 5 other anointed sisters who unexpectedly arrived at my house one day from La Jolla, Los Angeles and Anaheim and having several private "meetings" and conferences with them over a few months? time.....and I discovered, after the fact, that the July 10 - 19, 1988 letter was written exactly "one thousand two hundred and sixty days" before the letter I wrote the Governing Body on December 30/31, 1991, which was the letter that forced them to order my df?ing six weeks later.....and since the spiritual events that occurred while I lived in the bungalow on 7th, included meeting the returned Lord "face to face", meeting the 5 other anointed sisters and initiating my df?ing on purpose, I?ll cover those events in the Fourth Installment of this Strange Exodus.
Just remember, yall....things aren?t always what they appear to be....so don?t "flip your wigs" over these things. ;)
Frannie B