Anyone with Happy Memories from being a JW born in, please post here....

by SkyGreen 57 Replies latest jw experiences

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  cognac

  1. I loved keeping track of how many times the speaker would say, god, Jehovah, Jesus, etc. I would avoid even going to the bathroom so my numbers would be accurate, lol. One time I let my dad take over so I could go to the bathroom and he didn't do it (of course, I noticed cause I was listening for the words and had my numbers memorized). I was so mad at him! I was furious. Felt the whole assembly was ruined, lol.

  2. I loved commenting. For a long time i thought using the scriptures in the paragraph and answers directly from the paragraph was kind of like cheating so I was always coming up with my own stuff. That also made studying much better.

  3. LOVED writing talks. Many sisters asked me to "help" ie. pretty much write, the talks for them.

  4. Loved the assemblies- the flirting with the guys and meeting up with my friends part.

  5. Loved the dramas.

  6. Happy I didn't get an std or pregnant cause I was to scared to have sex.

  7. Loved going door to door and talking to people. I just liked people and believed in what I was doing.
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  PaintedToeNail

  I loved that we would go camping in at Sequioa or Yosemite Nat'l Parks with another family with a lot of kids, or a whole group of families. We kids would play 'cowboys and Indians', the girls were always the Indians. One of the boys pulled a yucca spear off a plant and slit my throat with it, because I escaped. Yucca Spears are sharp, he really did cut my neck...we all had to make up a story of what we were doing, because we weren't supposed to be playing anything with weapons. We would also go for hikes while at the Parks, and go swimming, listen to ranger programs and watch the rangers trap bears for removal to elsewhere in the park. It was fun.

  We also went to the ocean fairly often and swimming with other witnesses. Sometimes we played mini-golf with a group of kids. There was an elderly sister who loved kids and she would sometimes have kiddie parties, complete with Pinata and a hired clown!

  On Halloween, we went to Knott's Berry Farm, with a whole group of JW's for the night and rode all the great rides. Knott's started closing, around 1973? on Halloween, so we ended up at some go-cart park instead, it was a let down from Knott's!

  My parents then decided we had to go save all the extended family members in Minnesota before 1975, so we moved from lovely, sunny, warm Southern California, to fridged, economically depressed Northern Minnesota, we ended up dirt poor, cold, and out of work, living with my granny. I never really had fun again. The Minnesotans thought of us a weirdos with strange accents, the extended family got sick of my parents preaching and shunned us to shut them up, I ended up with cold induced health problems and became a latchkey child for the first time, as mom had to try to save us from starving.
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  perfect1

  Sky Green:

  But in some areas, I do believe they get it right - common sense prevails, not that they necessarily think of stuff first. For instance, does anyone else recall the dangers of practical jokes being mentioned in the mags at some point? That kind of common sense couldve prevented some recent events in the UK regarding Aussie DJs from ever happening.

  Cognac: 6. Happy I didn't get an std or pregnant cause I was to scared to have sex.

  I know what you are after here Sky Green, and I will say most of my happy JW memories involve me feeling I was better than other people- other JWs or worldly people. Thats not really happiness, is it. I quote these two comments cause they stand out to me as remnants of JW brainwashing- that the orgs teachings can prevent tragedy in an immoral world. STDs and pregnancy, for example, are not that common if a person is responsible in having sex. But to be responsible you would have to 1) educate yourself and 2) be prepared with protection. As to linking the sucide of the UK nurse to the supposed common sense of a WT article, what are you suggesting, that if the nurse had a copy of the Mag she would be OK- that if Autralian DJS took the dangers of practical joking to heart they never would have called. The nurse had tried to kill herself before. It sounds to me like you are desperate to find the good in your experience, but youre still wearing the JW glasses, and seeing the world as a dangerous place, where the SOCIETIES ARMS protected you from harm. NAUSEATING
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  Apognophos

  When I was a child, we had a lot of fun at cong. picnics, and I played ball in a cong. "little league" composed of boys my age. As we got older, the gatherings became smaller and more infrequent, and the other boys left the "truth". Oh, and I enjoyed the coziness of the Book Study and getting to wear sweaters on those nights.

  Overall, I had an all right upbringing, but little of that was due to the JWs. I am, however, thankful for the aspects of the Christian personality that I was encouraged to develop. I wouldn't necessarily have been a wild child, but having those rules, and a hope for the future (albeit one based on false premises, as I found out later), kept me perhaps a bit more stable than I would have been otherwise. However, I'm afraid that cancels out with the depression I felt as a teenager just because I was feeling normal teenager feelings about girls, and how I thought I was going to die at Armageddon as a result.

  Thus, overall, if I could choose not to have been brought up that way, I would, but to some extent it was a nice cocoon to live in as a child. I didn't hate the meetings or field service, or all the rules, or being different from my classmates. Obviously, for some people (ahem, perfect1), this upbringing may have been more traumatic.
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  cognac

  Perfect1- I wasn't educated about that stuff and my parents didn't talk about it. That's why at least having that fear safeguarded me. I'm not saying it was all good- the constant guilt over everything sucked. It would have been much better to have the education without the jw thing, but I doubt that would have been the case for me.
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  zed is dead

  I had some good memories, but they are more than surplanted by the damage inflicted by the cult. It was a horrible way to be raised, and have your individuality and self esteem crushed.

  zed
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  THE GLADIATOR

  Is anyone born a JW?

  Perhaps it is the years of calculated brainwashing that make one a Jehovah's Witness.
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  blondie

  born in?

  jw mother 2nd gen not too involved

  non-jw father (other issues)

  It had nothing to do with having a jw mother, but my non-jw father had kind and giving friends toward me and my siblings (probably because they saw the bad treatment we got)

  We spent many happy days at the homes of our non-jw friends and their parents. My mother was glad to have us out of the house. We spent summers with our cousins and grandparents. We had teachers at school that gave us positive feedback and even had us over for dinner with their family.

  Having a non-jw father can and has branded many a child of a jw mother as bad association so the KH was not a source of support. But it left me with a more caring attitude towards non-jws.
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  ekruks

  I would necessarily connect any happy memory to being a JW - they are events, things that any person might experience. But I can directly connect many negative experiences to growing up in a cult.
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  Athanasius

  I was also born in, but had the advantage of having a non-JW father, so I was able to get some college education. Unfortunately I had a manipulative "gung ho JW" mother who talked me into quiting college for pioneering. Pioneering did keep me out of the Vietnam war, so I guess that was something positive about being a JW. Other than that, I can't say I have any happy memories of JW life.