by yknot 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Alright! A schedule! Now I know how much chill time I've got until it's time to pick up the missus from the convention site! Thanks yknot! I look forward to receiving the new publications for this year in advance, too--"'because going through the old ones don't give me the same flush of excitement. It's habit-forming.' But is it a good habit?" <--Oops, dropped into my Young People Ask Volume 1 quote on pornography. My mistake...
--sd-7
they just keep on being more and more secretive. Very suspicious.
I'm not sure if this was true in all halls, but at mine they would make a very big deal about how to book a hotel room. (Pretty silly considering it was a DC city.) The elder would also tell people to make sure they call the first hotel on the list, and if that was full, proceed to the next one on the list. You weren't supposed to just pick whichever hotel you wanted on the list.
I was always surprised by the crappy hotel/motel choices they used...mostly older ones I would never stay at. No Best Westerns or other newer hotels were on their "list." They always stressed how much work and months of preparations the brothers at Bethel spent negotiating good rates, and it was important not to get a hotel not on the list so everyone could benefit from their negotiated deals. Talk about guilt mongering.
Too bad the list isn't up for USA and Canada. Time to face the music with the family!
Here was my experience(s) with the designated lodging...
1. There were never enough rooms for everyone. As soon as the meeting was over people would rush home to call the hotels of their first choice. Then cell phones came along...people started calling from the parking lot as soon as the meeting was over. So then the WTS said... no calling before noon the next day. But - there was always one or two congregations that had the service meeting earlier in the week than the rest of us...those slimy bastards got a two day head start on the rest of us...so we would bug friends from that cong. to make a list and give it to us so we could make arrangements before we ever had our meeting. Nothing says Christian love like beating your Christian brother to the lodging list and getting the choice rooms first...
2. After awhile we tired of fighting for a medicore room in a mediocre hotel... so we started making our own arrangements. Due to our circumstances at the time, we could actually get deeper discounts than what the WTS could get. We thought this was a good thing for all concenred. Since there wasn't enough rooms for everyone, we're not taking up a room that some other family that didn't have any other discounts available could use. A benefit to us was that we could pick the hotel of our choice, nice restaurant and bar being pre-requisites to enjoying our stay for 4 days. Of course, we got counsled for not following WT rules. We were not, under any circumstance, to make our own arrangements. If the rooms were all gone, then we were supposed to wait on the Society to release a second list (which invariably had even worse hotels on the list)
3. On more than one occasion, a hotel was so dirty/disgusting/nasty/revolting that the JWs complained so loudly to the rooming department that they had to relocate an entire hotel full of people duing the middle of the convention.
4. By the time I had mentally checked out, I didn't care what the rules were. I knew what hotel I liked best and that's where I was staying. If all the JW rooms were gone, I booked anyway. When the hotel gave up working with the WTS and it was no longer on the list, I stayed there anyway. And I wasn't alone... I noticed lots of dubs staying there as well.
5. But there were good times as well...when I was a teenager/early 20something; a group of us would book a room, even though we lived in a convention city at that time, just so we could party for 4 days. We always put 6 to 8 people in a room, brought booze in, had drinking games, played poker, watched porn, generally had a great time. We got busted one time when hotel cameras caught multiple people coming and going out of one room so they had security check it out and realized we had 8 people sleeping in the room. Then there was the time that a party went bad and the elders got wind of it and went on a witch hunt. DFings/reprovals were handed down. I quit staying with that group after that because loose lips sink ships and too many people had big mouths. Better to party with a small group that you can trust instead of a large group where you don't know everyone.
You made your own arrangements and lodged on your own in order to fornicate, to watch porn and to make abuse of alcohol! During a holy meeting! Satan has you in his pockets!!! Repent or be DF and die at Armaggeddon!
Your loving brother, Teddy Jaracz
Teddy Jaracz I think the real problem here is not that people are booking their own rooms but the arrangements that the Organization is directing.
They have been making commercial arrangements to gain a monetary or other benefit from their followers. This is not an 'arms length' arrangement and leads to all sorts of problems. What is particularly bad is the way they instruct JWs to follow this procedure, it doesn't sound voluntary and fortunately there are no direct reprecussions if they don't follow it.
I just couldn't imagine Jesus saying the following to his disciples -
"Well you all know we are going to have a gathering at Mount Zion, there will be many visitors from other places, they will need a place to stay. What I want you to do is seek out households in the city that will require a payment from these visitors and ask how much and what they will be prepared to give directly to you. With this information make out a list and prioritize those households that are prepared to give us the most. Provide this list to the visitors and instruct them to work their way done this list to obtain accommodation, not to look elsewhere and not to negotiate with anyone."
they're not gonna print these life saving locations for the general public to find?
I guess they have no guilt of being blood guilty--> for that person picking up a Washtowel in the laundromat and wanting their life saving word!
I wonder if the WTBTS sees something major in the future as far as the relationship between religion and government? It could be a printing savings issue as mentioned earlier, but it does sound highly suspicious. I wonder if they are trying to secret information from "prying eyes"???? Maybe the foresee a religious backlash or oppression here soon...
This is probably as mentioned already: they don't have all the locations for DC's worked out yet and they are ready to print the March magazine. So they will use this as the break to stop printing it in the magazine ever again. They probably know this snafu occurs regularly so they won't feel any pressure in the next years to come to have it all completed in time to print the March mag. This way, only the congs. involved know their location hasn't been ironed out yet and all the others are oblivious plus they get used to just going where they are assigned if they don't have the list (although most will go to the internet if they need to locate a different location or date).
I know we like to see them as super-duper secretive, but really this is pretty minor and the list will be available online. The only secretive thing I see is that they won't print any "To be determined" in the magazines.
