1) they're going to stop producing the WT publications index "because its hard to maintain and translate". So they're going to create a digital-only research tool on JW.org . It's like, how convenient and smart. They can now conveniently remove all the old light as soon as it is superseded with new light and they can get just "lose" all reference to the old, inconveniently damning articles from before 1994 (like hat tipping is from the devil and chess is a war-game and all that tripe). Ministry of Truth, anyone?
2) they told people in the morning announcements to bring your lunch from home so as to not to leave the convention site and thus avoid supporting the worldy outside vendors
3) today's "new releases" we're actually five old re-releases of tracts entitled "who really controls the world", "will this world survive", "the secret to family happiness" and two other very familiar sounding titles. Endless to say we didn't bother standing in the new release lines this afternoon. I'll post more details and the official titles tomorrow
and as I mentioned in the Gerrit Loesch thread:
4) there was a future-state drama about a modern-day Job meeting the real Job and swapping stories. The modern day Job's daughter was killed with his FiL in a car wreck. And they made out "worldly" people to be mean-spirited false comforters who told them their calamity was god's way of punishing them for being part of a "sect" (haha, they didn't say cult) and his boss said that to recover from the calamity, he should forget about god and throw himself into work (he is fired soon after). And in the end, because they were faithful, everyone shows up resurrected in the paradise.
5) there was a skit about an aunt (sounded Hispanic) who wanted her niece to go work in another country because she could make "5 times more money raising other people's kids" than they could in their current country. The husband was inclined to listen, but the neice was concerned about leaving her kids with her husband to work overseas, especially if she was going to be raising other people's kidsmwhen they didnt really need the money. an elder finally came by to say that he had worked overseas and regretted it terribly - he came back to a significant paycut, but it was spiritually worth it. It was so bizarre and random that all we could figure was that it was their way of telling immigrants to go back to their home countries.
6) also, one thing I forgot to add in my Gerrit Loesch post, he said "we believe in education, but we believe in the highEST education, like what you can get at the Bible School for Christian Couples, higher education isn't enough for us"