by The wanderer 40 Replies latest jw friends
and if God wouldn't forgive all the ignorant masses out there
for never believing the message of these strange Jehovah's Witnesses that come to their door with nice printed
hand-outs?
I had that thought many times myself. Although, never actually had the conversation with anyone out in FS.
j
The resolve of the "born agains" almost imposible to convert/recruit dubs would say they had a 'glazed look in their eyes cause their demonized'.I wonder if what we were seeing might have benn a glimmer of the holy spirit?
S+M in sacred service there were 'sisters' Rockland Massachusetts Kingdom Hall who would sexually harass me and my underage 16 year old brother in the car group.I am talking dirty shit that would get them fired in the worldy secular workplace.The elders knew about it and refused to discipline them.
Not right!
regretfully I use to be a poineer. I really never enjoyed it at all. I was always being counselled for this or that and I didn't set a good example by leaving the service early. I was accused of bragging about placing to many books and magazines. It was a real terrible time in my live. I just finally one day had it and I said no more in the pioneer work and then as the year dwindled I did less and less in service, Made all kinds of excuses.
I hardly ever went out unless my mom and sister asked me and even then it was a bore.
I questioned how the Society seemed to dode more on those who pioneered and those less who didnt or couldln't It was always talked about at meetings assemblies and every where else. Pioneers go in the service more. If you have no children why aren't you a full time pioneer.? Talk about invading peoples lives.
The quilt they heaped upon witnesses was disgusting. I actually gave up a good education to pioneer because my parents pressured me into leaving school. I always questioned why couldn' t I play in extra school team practise. I was a really a great basket ball player and my teachers told me I would easily get into the Toronto Varsity teams. I was so upset and so angry at my parents and the WTS and hated being forced to get up to go out in the service on the weekends. If we didn't get up for service on the weekends my mom or dad mostly dad would pour ice cold water over us to get us up. Then the bribe oh after service today we are going on a small road trip or picnic for the day. Every Thursday after the meeting my mom made us goodie so we had motive to go to the meeting and on Sunday every week if we all got to the meeting we went out to Swiss Chalet. for supper. it was all bribrey and I blamed the GB. There were several elders I grew to dispise because they knew my dad was an alcholic and yet at every oppourtinity the brothers offered and sometimes forced him to drink. I hated them for that and my mom was devasted. She would say how can they do that to a reforming alcholic and guess what my dad started drinking heavily again. What a mess. We were at an assembly in Midland and the elders seem to stay all in the same motel and so no sooner had we unpacked that an elder knocked on the door of our room and called my dad over to their room. He gave my father a 40 oncer of whiskey.. I was beyond anger, I got up and ran to the door and my father grabbed me and hurt me pulled me back into the our room and he said to me there is no way your going to make a scene and I pulled away from him and said oh yes I am and then he dragged me back into the room and by that time all the girls were crying. Because they knew what he could become by drinking again. VIOLENT. and he sure showed that to me. after my parents left the room I ran outside and my father looked back at me and said what are you doiong and I said I am going to say some very fierce words to that elder and I said then I am leaving to return home. He was mortified. He screamed at me and told me to get back in the room and we would deal with it when they returned. I just wanted to take the kids back home and let them see the hurt he was causing us. But no he rather save his ass and face we meant nothing to him at that moment only that bottle of booze.
They made 1975 seem like if you aren't doing what God says now then how will you do what God asks od you in the new system/ guilt bribery.
No all are evangilzers the bible says or not all are teacher or not all preacher. We can be used in other ministries like visiting the sick and doing errands for older or sick ones. That I didn't mind doing. But once again the society said this should never be more important than the preaching work. blah blah blah.
in my church we visit the sick a committee of women and some men do pastoral care, They send out flowers and get well cards. They welcome new babies with celebration and they have other special groups who prepare for church socials and fund raisers for the church and the neighbours in our town. I find that this makes me so happy because no one forces you it is all out of the goodness of our hearts and following Christ examples.
Jehovah's witnesses have no idea how much they miss out in live by being robots and yesbots in a dictatorship. It isn't theocratic, they have no idea what that really means. Or they have twisted it to mean what they want it to be. I feel pity and sorrow for those who are locked into that org. Life is so grand and they don't now it because they are to busy being suppressed. They are really to be pitied and the Society needs to a rude awakening.
Orangefatcat
The whole fact that everything was scripted always bothered me, I never followed their scripts and felt that if I did, I imagined myself as this doll with a string attached to my chest that you would just pull out to hear what is next. I was not a Teddy Ruxpin Witness!!!!!
abr
It's not so much what the householders did or said but what WE did and said that made me question the society
purps
When I was a kid I would go out in the service to be with my dad..When I got a little older and didn`t want to go.I found out it was`nt an option...OUTLAW
Before I was baptised I remember going out in service and the hard-core elders' wives and pioneers would all go into the POs Suburban and made it all look so fun. I wasn't invited to go in the Suburban because I had to take my 2 year old twins and no one wanted the bother of children in the car. Not to mention the unbaptised worldly girl -- what the hell was I doing there anyway?
I rarely had someone volunteer to partner during the week and when there was an odd number, and someone had no choice but to work with me, I could tell they were just so bothered. It was usually just me and my twins going door to door.
I looked longingly at all the other sisters having fun with each other (or what looked like fun to me at the time), talking, laughing, gossiping (maybe about me). I was never included in any conversations. I was so lonely and I wanted to belong ... somewhere. Why did I join? That's a question I will always ask myself. So many things should have tipped me off!
I never got to the point of doing field service or being baptized, which is one clue that I knew something was wrong deep down even though much of what they were telling me seemed "logical." Also, I always had this gut-deep feeling that something just wasn't right. Other than this, three incidents made me seriously start believing that the Witnesses weren't what I was looking for:
1) At an assembly, I and the woman with whom I studied were having a conversation with a prominent sister in the congregation. This sister's husband was an elder, and they owned a seafood restaurant. The sister was discussing a recent fire at another local restaurant. The damage caused by that fire made the other restaurant close down for a time, so this sister's restaurant was getting more business because of it. She was talking about how people had been calling to book for the holidays and how she had been negotiating prices with these people. In the conversation, she was pretty much bragging about how she had lied to these people about the usual price her restaurant charged for large parties. She made them assume that she charged the same higher price as the other fire-damaged restaurant. When she saw our puzzled look (because my mentor and I just didn't catch on to what she was implying at first), she quickly changed the subject.
2) The same sister mentioned above would advertise in the local newspaper for holiday dinners (Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.) at her restaurant. I always thought this was very hypocritical: She & her husband are preaching that it's wrong to celebrate the holidays, yet they encouraged that very thing by promoting it in their restaurant.
3) This next incident was the coup de grace for my realization of how robotic the society really is: My sister, who lives in another state, had started studying with the Witnesses (at my encouragement, unfortunately). We both attended the Memorial service (in different states, of course). As we were discussing it over the phone later that night, our conversation turned to the speaker and what he said when the wine was passed around. We realized that both of our speakers had spoken the exact same "casual banter." They were reading from a freakin' script! While I knew they did that for formal discourses, I would never have thought that even casual comments were scripted. All I could picture was a Watchtower written directive to elders that stated something like, "While the wine is being passed around, offer some of these comments about wine in general: . . . ." I was just so disgusted that I couldn't take the Witnesses seriously after that.
Yes! When we were told to place old, out of date publications to get rid of stock in Brooklyn and at the same time calling it 'food at the proper time'!
Outaservice
Actually, it was the things that happened at the KH that made me question the WTS................and there were a lot of them. I just was a slow learner. I tended to chalk up the errors to individuals rather than seeing that it was the organization that was flawed. Yes, if that bread loaf pan is dented, everything that comes out of that pan will be flawed....(smile).
Blondie
