Were you surprised when you went in service for the first time....

by Muddy Waters 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Muddy Waters

  Were you surprised when you went in service for the first time (this question is prob for those who were NOT born-in) --

  When I first had the "privilege" of going in field service as an unbaptized publisher, I remember feeling so surprised at everybody's apparent SLOWNESS. All the talks at the KH emphasized how we were in the last days, doing a life saving, critical, never to be repeated, work, etc., yet you get in the car group and ignore people walking right by or coming toward the car, and then SLOWLY walk from house to house. The sisters would fumble with their book bags forever in the car, some would start going over presentations with each other (weren't you already supposed to be prepared??), people would start long rambling monologues about what they would say to their return visits, and tell you the whole boring story of the person they were calling on & what literature they placed with them last time, etc. Then you would sit in the car sometimes while others would go visit their RVs, and when you finally went for coffee, nobody talked to anybody in the restaurant or deli... We sat there with our coffee and donut and talked only with each other. What happened to witnessing in the streets and marketplaces, synagogues, etc?

  I just remember feeing so surprised, because field service wasn't at all what I expected or thought it would be, according to how the gospel accounts depicted it, and how the meetings emphasized it so much. I was also surprised to see how inept and nervous most people were at the doors, and how so many brothers and sisters appeared relieved when nobody answered the door. Field service often felt so pointless, and even when I was a zealous super-dub, it was hard not to feel discouraged and depressed after being out for a morning. But of course I always felt that the fault lay within me somewhere. I was the one not doing it right, or not going out at the right time, or not having Jehovah's blessing, blah blah blah.

  Anyway, were YOU surprised when you went in the ministry for the first time/times....? (or half a time, lol ...)
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  mercedes_29

  We drove around a lot and always stopped for coffee. Our congo got a special needs talk about all the time we were spending in the coffee shops and the CO told us we couldn't all take a break at the same coffee shop - we should spread out more. Ugh, I hated service. Very few in my old congo even liked service.
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  cultBgone

  Me? I was terrified. The pio sis who studied with me failed to prepare me, but much worse, she told me that she took weekends off...yet told me I had to go out on Saturday. I should have just returned home after being sent to knock on doors alone.
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  OneEyedJoe

  I was born-in, but it was still shocking to me how much people would deliberately kill time in service. Everyone would walk as slow as possible and call it the "pioneer stroll" or they'd do a street where the houses were like 200' apart and call it "rural" so they could drive to each house, with only 2 people getting out at a time. It never added up. Why is our time so valuable that kids can't go to college, but when using our time as prescribed, no one (including the elders telling us not to go to college) seemed to actually use that time wisely.
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  clarity

  Oh yeah all that piddling around was soooo frustrating!

  I just started going out on my own... I like to just get

  things done! Big disappointment really.
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  steve2

  Some things don't change. I was raised in it so cannot remember those earliest times my parents took me door-to-door. But what a bunch of unfocused plodders most Witnesses were back in the 1960s. Oh they didn't take coffee breaks - and there was no McCafe to escape to - but the amount of street-corner gathering and talking about everything other than "the kingdom" and the endless sitting in cars when we knew we should be getting out and started. The smallest of excuses led to stopping and going back to our vehicles.
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  sparrowdown

  Hell yeah, there were some sisters who were incapable of walking and talking at the same time.

  The bro's were hopeless at organizing even small groups of people, especially if there was an odd number.

  Most seemed to do the exact opposite of what had been demonstrated only days before at the service meeting.

  And don't even get me started on the pushy big-mouth sisters who always took over the door.

  I observed a major disconnect between how we were instructed to do it and how it was in reality.

  I often felt very embarrassed and uncomfortable for the householders who did'nt have a clue what was going on.
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  designs

  I was in Junior High School, 8th grade, when i first went out. One of my first calls was on a Pentecostal husband and wife who went into the full-on speaking in tongues mode walking in circles in a trance in the living room. lol
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  sparrowdown

  @designs- I can only imagine the expression on your face would have been priceless.
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  Bob_NC

  It boggles the mind how slow people can walk in fs. What really surprised me, though, was the Circuit Overseers. I thought when he came that we'd better have our game. No time for dilly dallying. Pzzt! He was the worst of all. We had one CO that as soon as he talked at a door would say "Break...I made my call."

  We had another CO that introduced us to coffee breaks not at McDs. Oh no. He knew where the full serve restaurant was on the first day of fs and headed there within an hour of knocking the first door...AND asked the coffee waitress to bring us fresh baked rolls. A charge for the rolls? Okay, that's fine, we all want rolls.