"The Note"

by AuSet 39 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  AuSet

  At the 1994 district convention in Bismark, North Dakota, (could possibly have been 93) my sister wrote a note to her friend and tossed it in the garbage. The note contained a discussion about going to boy's hotel rooms after the sessions ended, and other troublesome activities, including lying to the parents about what my sister and her friend were doing.
  Presumably, an attendant found this note in the garbage and turned it into the elders. ON the last talk of the last day of the convention, the note was read out loud to the entire audience, along with the warning that "whoever you are, we will find you." I believe that this note was read as a scare tactic to make an example out of my sister.
  Within three weeks, the elders in my cong. asked to meet with my sister, and told her that they knew it was her who wrote the note.

  Supposedly, the incident surrounding the note was used in a later magazine or possibly a Kingdom Ministry. Parents were told to monitor their children's activities closely at conventions (that was about the gist of it.)
  To this day I still cannot believe that the elder/attendant searched the garbage, that they turned it in to someone of authority, and that someone made the decision to read this very personal note to an audience of several thousand people.

  My questions to all of you are:
  1) Have you heard of this note?
  2) Does anyone know of the article in subsequent literature about this? I don't think the note was mentioned directly in the article.
• 

  Xandit

  Having been in charge of cleaning at a number of assemblies I can assure that every piece of paper in every trash can is read by specially trained Brothers who are charged with ferreting out just such misdeeds. I remember fondly when we finally received the ultraviolent lamps so we could read things that were being written in invisible ink.
• 

  ianao

  Xandit:

  What a long-winded way to call someone a liar.
• 

  Frenchy

  I'm lauging and shaking my head at Xandit's remarks.
  I was the cleaning overseer for our circuit and for several District Conventions over the years. There is no policy to examine the trash. This was undoubtedly just a very curious brother.
  I can't think of any article about what you mentioned but it certainly would be in character for such a thing to be done by some of those yo yo's.

  -Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
• 

  Frenchy

  On a related note: A brother who was in our congregation years ago found some Playboy magazines under a brother's car seat. (What was he doing looking there in the first place, right?) Anyway he confronted the brother with it and asked him outright if he practiced oral sex with his wife. I asked him how he managed to make a connection between nudie magazines and oral sex. He said that when he worked offshore the guys that looked at those kind of magazine would brag about performing oral sex so he assumed that this brother would be doing the same thing. Incidentally, the guy confessed to it much to the embarrassment of his wife who was then called into a committee meeting on the matter.

  -Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
• 

  Scorpion

  I just thought of a great way to get back at the DO and CO as well as the elders in their congregation.

  Buy some porno magazines, sign the elders names as well as the COs and DOs names in some of the magazines, take them to the assemblies and put them in various trash cans while no one is looking.

  Edited by - Scorpion on 5 March 2001 1:56:26
• 

  thinkers wife

  AuSet,
  Just one more shocking thing. Unbelievable. I do have to agree though that this is probably not a regular practice. Maybe someone was watching that knew your sister and got the note out.
  Regardless, how humiliating for her.
  TW
• 

  AuSet

  Xandit,

  As you are having trouble reading, I would like to point out that I stated
  " the ElDER/ATTENDANT searched the garbage"
  I did not state that this was done en masse as you suggest I did, but stated that it was a singular act.
• 

  LovesDubs

  This sounds a little "urban legend" ish to me. I have heard about these parties tho in the years since I left the Borg. They are not unusual. I doubt VERY highly that an organization as tight arsed as this one for sticking to the OUTLINE would ever arbitrarily read a note they found in a garbage can, which could just as well have been placed there by an APOSTATE looking to defile "Jehovah" as anybody, to the entire assemblage which would only serve to make THEM look bad in the eyes of "visiting ones". Especially if they didnt know the facts behind it. And what PROOF was there that your sister wrote this note unless she signed it and put her congregation name on it too?

  If your sister never gave this note to anybody, but rather threw it away, and didnt ACT on the information in it, then what did she actually do? Somebody did this TO her if indeed it did happen. With 10,000 people at some of these assemblies and with all the germy smarmy kleenexs and poopy diapers in the trash, nobody in their right mind would have been in there unfolding papers. They SAW her drop it and were RIGHT BEHIND HER picking it up if it happened at all.

  Do you think it would even be necessary for Gods People to have a discussion about what a bad idea it is for sisters to go visit brothers in their hotel rooms after the sessions? I dont recall seeing that "rule" in that four page pullout of RULES of CONDUCT for assemblies they bored us with every year. "Do not save seats for those not in your car group. And oh by the way, dont go have parties in the hotel rooms of unsupervised boys afterwards. Dont have oral sex with your mate either...we're WATCHING YOU."

  Loves
  "My task is to bear witness to the truth. For this was I born for this I came into the world, and ALL who are not deaf to truth listen to my voice" - Jesus before Pilate, John 18:37
• 

  ianao

  LovesDubs

  I have heard about these parties tho in the years since I left the Borg. They are not unusual. I doubt VERY highly that an organization as tight arsed as this one for sticking to the OUTLINE would ever arbitrarily read a note they found in a garbage can, which could just as well have been placed there by an APOSTATE looking to defile "Jehovah" as anybody, to the entire assemblage which would only serve to make THEM look bad in the eyes of "visiting ones".

  If the idea of reading the note outloud was to make parents more aware of what might be going on behind their backs, then that would be a good reason to read it.