do you remember the Last assembly you attended? (page 3)

johnnyblazedog

I cant remember all too well, the last few assemblies I attended I was stoned out of my mind.......all the crap they were trying to feed seem very hilarious!!! Great TIMES!!!

My last one was a district convention in 2003 in Portland, Maine. Pure torture. I didn't want to go in the first place, so I was feeling depressed, angry, and anxious. My ex-husband was hearing impaired, so we went to sit in that section, but the power-drunk attendant kicked me out (never had that problem before). I went down to the floor section and found a seat near the platform. I must have been radiating misery because my ex told me that they sent an attendant to sit a few rows behind me and across the aisle, obviously watching me.

I hadn't made up my mind to DA myself yet, but I was close to it. I think I made him take me home after that day. He went back. It was a 4-hour trip one way. Fanatic.

http://scottleblog.wordpress.com

The Odd Life of Jehovah's Witnesses

lilbluekitty

I don't remember the exact date but I'm guessing it was last year or the year before? I think it was spring of last year possibly but since I live in South TX who can tell? It always feels like summer here. Anyway, I rode with this very odd sister and her son and her Bible student who was only in her early teens. (Now that I'm out I can't stand that they study with children, it's so abhorrent to me because children can be so easily swayed.) Anyway the sister was very weird and her van was always quite dirty, most pioneers cars are, if you remember. I stepped out of the van at the assembly parking lot and noticed a huge wad of pink gum stuck to my shoe!! I was sitting in the front and the woman had offered me gum but I only chew spearmint. I don't know if it was her or her son but someone must've spit the gum out onto the floor of the car. I was so mad and kept trying to scrape it off all day. I remember walking around and taking pictures of the old literature they had behind glass and just thinking how weird everything was and how no one talked to me. During the assembly I probably only wrote 3 pages of notes (I used to fill at least half a notebook with notes before!) and in the end started doodling and conjugating French verbs or making random lists of things. Then I was distracted by the girl sitting 2 seats down from me who was a cutter and seemed to be proudly displaying her many scars and fresh cuts on her arms and I was thouroughly disturbed because her mother didn't seem to care one bit! After that, the next assembly that came up I skipped and soon after just stopped going to meetings altogether in July 2011. The whole thing was just disgusting. The people were obviously mentally ill and no one noticed because they all were like that, everyone was either emaciated or morbidly obese and hardly anyone would talk to me no matter how friendly I was. I only walked around with one girl and I didn't understand half of what she said except I knew she didn't want to be there. The fact that I could have been at home in my pjs for the weekend watching movies kept going through my head when I already had heard all this crap my whole life. I honestly don't know what the theme was and couldn't care less. I decided why should I keep going if I hated it?

somebody

1978 at the Natick Assembly Hall in Natick MA.

Nathan Natas

It was sometime in the 1970's at the infamous Polo Grounds in NYC. If I recall correctly, it happened - unknown to me at the time - that this was the very same assembly that Barbara Grazutti Harrison after writing her wonderful book, "Visions of Glory" which can be read for FREE at freeminds.com.

...anyway, back to me; I was mentally and emotionally well on my way out and the entire assembly might well have been mimed in Esperanto for all it meant to me. Boooooooorrrrring! Spiritual sawdust in due season!

"...misty water-color mem'ries of the way we were..."

bigmac

yes--a local circuit thing in my home town--late 1980. my then wife had---once again ---coerced/ nagged /seduced me into attending.

however--we sat next to another married couple--friends of ours. later that sunday evening we went to their house. his wife and i started what went on to become a red hot affaire.

my wife never tried to get me to any more meetings. divorced me instead. the rest is history.

ramtrucker

The last assembly, District, that I attended was in 1999 at the Convention Center in Kennewick, WA

My wife of 38 years had filed for a divorce a few months previous. I felt alone and lost, so when my sister suggested I go, I figured I could use the companionship.

The air conditioning at that time was totally inadequate. The outside temps was approaching the 100 mark and indoors it was pure misery. Not only hot, but humid.

My sister and family including my dad chose to sit in the bleachers.

During the Saturday session, I realized my soon to be ex-wife's niece and her family were sitting in chairs on the main floor. Every time I'd glance at my soon to be ex-niece, I'd see her looking up at me. It seemed that she was glaring at me.

My ex had filed, stating that I was both mentally, physically and emotionally cruel, plus controlling. The usual stuff to make people feel like she was entitled to divorce me.

My wife's family were like members of my own family. I looked up to her elder brother like he was my own brother ,rather than a brother in law, as I'd known him since I was slightly more than ten years old.

That niece was born several years after I first met her father. She was almost like a daughter to me. So I was incredibly pained by the expression on her face.

I've never seen her, nor spoke to her since.

Later, she was disfellowshipped for having an affair with someone. Recently she was reinstated and she and her husband live with her parents, taking care of them in their "golden" years, so to speak.

I miss them, but not the organization.

blondie

Yes, in fact it was the last "meeting" I attended and specific things were said that motivated me never to come back.

I left Saturday morning of a circuit assembly and never went back.

Illustrations

penny - shiny quarter, Jesus would not pick up the penny

jw women are kissing corpses when they kiss their non-jw husbands (I wasn't the only one who left on that one)

training young elephants by conditioning, chaining them to a stake.

jookbeard

certainly do, the DC at Twickenham 1994, turned up in jeans and a tee, it was a baker , I'd been out since 1992 and heard my mum wanted to see me,( her health was failing) when I caught up with her she gave me the most disgusting evil look and just greeted me with a single "hi" I walked away never to return, the whole experience was rather weird, I just wanted to get out of there, I was pretty sure I was being followed as well. Never returned in any shape or form to thier crap, strange thing was though a handful of bro's who I contributed into leaving were fully wrapped up in the whole DC thing(ladies, best suits etc).

sd-7

Absolutely. It was earlier this year. I attended the 2012 "Safeguard Your Heart!" District Convention. Well, half of it, anyway. I was there to help the Mrs. keep an eye on the kids. My kid threw up during the Sunday lunch break, and we didn't bring a change of clothes, so we had to miss the afternoon session--and that LOVELY drama about the JW and the unbaptized publisher. What a tragedy! I mean, if I could, I would've remember to bring a change of clothes for the kid, or even taken the vomit full-on myself, if it meant I could have watched that drama, in vomit-soaked clothing, without having eaten lunch, I would've done it. No questions asked. In a heartbeat.

But seriously, I just read my Bible and ignored the speaker. People treated me like an unbelieving mate, so they were sooo nice! I said hi to a DF'd guy I grew up with in front of everyone, with a big smile. We both wore goatees, so it was loads of fun. If you don't take it seriously, one could actually tolerate that sort of event.

But as a teenager, I lived it, so I don't have to imagine the horrors that you recounted to us. Sleep deprivation, getting lost half the time in the city, being reminded about the evils of higher education every single day. Yeah. Ugggh....

--sd-7

do you remember the Last assembly you attended?