I mean door to door (sort of), not informally to non-witness friends and family!
So for a few weeks, I have suspected that my neighbor across the hall was being studied with by witnesses. I wasn't sure but saw a couple of older women leaving with what looked like bibles, but never saw Watchtower literature. I don't really know my neighbor but still had considered striking up a conversation with her but wasn't 100% sure if she was being courted by the witnesses. UNTIL TODAY.....
I was taking out garbage and heard a loud conversation about what I thought was god. I stood and listened for a minute but couldn't hear anything certain enough to be sure it was witnesses. I took out the garbage and then came back in to grab my wallet to run an errand. I ended up walking out with the older ladies who were carrying bibles and, yep, a Bible Teach book! I finally got my confirmation! I ended up walking all the way out to the parking lot with the witness ladies and agonized over saying something to them directly. I decided not as that would just make them run screaming if I said the wrong apostate trigger words and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of feeling persecuted.
So I left and ran my errands and came home. I knocked on the neighbor's door and introduced myself and asked her if she was studying with JW's. She said she was and I told her I just wanted to let her know that I was raised a witness and that they had basically destroyed my family. She has studied with them for a long time and knows a lot of their beliefs. She has gone to meetings and said that she hasn't been able to quit smoking, otherwise she could become a publisher. Still, she felt like something has always held her back.
She REALLY wanted to hear what I had to say and was very open-minded. I tried to not be very heavy-handed but told her my wife and I were being shunned without even being DFed or DAed, that as soon as we simply disagreed with the beliefs we were born into without choice we were immediately treated like we had the plague! I told her that the biggest reason we stopped being witnesses was the many changes in the beliefs over the years. I told her it's hard to believe that a few old guys in Brooklyn are the only people in the world that god talks to!?! And then when he does talk to them he gets it wrong!? I told her how people could resign without official punishment until 1980 when they changed the doctrine to silence some high-ranking dissenters and that they actually had a member of the governing body walk away in disagreement! Of course she knew none of this but believed me and we both wondered if some other forces in the universe brought me to her door!?!?
We talked for about 20 minutes but could have gone on for hours and she said she would knock on my door because she wants to hear so much more from my point of view! More updates to come!!!!!!!