I remember going to this lady's house who insisted on it being boiling hot! It didn't matter if it was winter or summer -- She either refused to turn on the air conditioning or had the heater on full force! My dad always HATED it because he had to wear his coat while he conducted even though it was 90 degrees.
What was your book study like?
by reneeisorym 12 Replies latest jw friends
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Gopher
The one that stands out the most was in my penultimate congregation. It was a weekly exercise in frustration.
Two of us gave 85% of the answers, out of a group of 15 to 20. The conductor was never prepared and spouted ideas off the top of his head. (Oh yeah we did the Revelation book there too. People were barely tolerating their "spiritual food".)
It was in the downstairs of the study conductor's house, on metal folding chairs. Lots of kids there couldn't wait for it to be done.
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reneeisorym
I remember going to one when I moved that was very near my house. I showed up -- the only white person there (they were all black). That was absolutely fine but I couldn't understand a word! They were all talking like they do at home and even though it was English, I had NO idea what was going on. It was a very strange feeling!
What was worse was that the reader could not read very well and it took him FOREVER to read the paragraph. We were all in wooden folded chairs and I thought it would NEVER end. I decided to never go back -- my hall attendance wasn't very good anyway and I figured I could get by with not going to the bookstudy very easy in this new hall! :)
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Clam
My worse one ever was when I was in my early teens. We had to go to this really smelly house where we were studying the Is This Life All There Is? book. The surroundings were gross and they had two girls (I used to call them the Ugly Sisters) about my age, who always had their eyes on me. To top it all I had to miss my then favourite programme, Monty Python's Flying Circus. I figured it was all going to be worthwhile. LOL -silly me.
Clam
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lawrence
Phew! Memories from distant cranium impulses...
Conducting a book study in my house where people wouldn't leave at night, and I had a morning janitor job before leading field circus. People stayed and stayed and yawning didn't get the point across. Once in a while, someone would swipe the toilet paper, and the kids would torture my cats. No wonder my wife ran off with a rock guitarist.
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LongHairGal
Generally speaking, I always liked the home book studies. The only awkward thing was that I didn't want to use people's bathroom and I always hurried home afterwards. What I didn't like was when there was an arrogant conductor who went over time and I would get up and leave if I had to.
Looking back in retrospect I have to say I give a lot of credit to people who opened up their homes.
LHG
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AMNESIAN
All but the first couple of my years sitting in book studies was as the wife of the elder who conducted it, which was fine. He was considerate and kind and prepared and conscientious even when he was dog tired and dozing off during some of the most tortured reciting ("comments").
My only constant drumbeat of agony over the years, other than the sheer idiocy of the content of every single book not entitled "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived," was the uncanny assigning of the book study "assistant/reader" for every single group I was ever doomed to. Not once in three decades was a MS assigned who had even a passing acquaintance with English vocabulary or the written word---even of the pre-school level of much of the WTS's ...ahem...literature. Not once in any paragraph ever read in any book study I was ever assigned did the "reader" encounter a word of more than three letters he instantly recognized.
It never ceased to amaze me that the spiritual food was so vital that I needed to consume it weekly lest I suffer malnourishment but never sufficiently vital for the WTS to insist that at minimum semi-literate baboons be assigned to serve it.
AMNESIAN
2/2001 as in "out since..." -
ush419
Only one was ever really interesting, and in that one I for some reason even though not baptized was the go to guy. The rest were agonizingly boring beyond belief. Now adays I just sit there and don't respond just waiting for the time to be over. They are useless in my book (no pun intended). There is no thought process going on or people would realize just how ridiculous they were. It seems to the Jdubs that everything every written about in the bible had to be about them. And they call the GB discreet and faithful, the arrogance is unbelieveable.
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exwitless
Our congregation didn't have very many book studies in people's homes. Most were held at the KH (booorrriiinngggg). I actually liked the few home book studies we had. It was a little more relaxed there compared to the KH.
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SacrificialLoon
I remember one tues. bookstudy at someone's home when I was a kid. They had kids too, and they had a lot of those portable video games. Like those ones from the 80's that looked like miniature arcade games. I couldn't wait for the bookstudy to end so I could play. That didn't last too long though. Another one was at my grandfather's house and he conducted since he was an elder at the time.