Baptised 52 years today!

by Phoebe 44 Replies latest jw friends

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  FatFreek 2005

  I guess I'm the old codger here at age 78. I was baptized 3 days before my 16th birthday. It was November 4, 1956.

  Ed Dunlap would give the featured talk on Sunday. You can read his sad tale of exiting WT in Ray Franz's book. A bit about him in the following youtube link:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PkosDW_uF4

  Here, I had just been dunked along with a native American. I always wondered why he retained his headdress. One dictionary defines it this way: "an ornamental covering or band for the head, especially one worn on ceremonial occasions."

  
  

  Len Miller
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  FatFreek 2005

  Here it is.

  
  
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  FatFreek 2005

  Correction: The day of the week was Saturday, so it must've been November 3, 1956. Thank you, Google.

  The venue was Westerly, RI.

  I met Carolyn Cashen there who was with her parents from Harwich, Mass. She went with me to my Junior Prom at New Bedford H.S.

  Len
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  Biahi

  Mine was November 1973, I was barely 14, my dad told me I couldn’t date until I got baptized, after I did it,I remember thinking “Omg, what have I done?” After I got baptized, my dad informed mei couldn’t date til I was 16, I said why didn’t I wait to get baptized?
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  steve2

  Blondie wrote: I can remember the date, same date as the moon landing. I was baptized in Lake Michigan and it was freezing cold even in July; it smelled like dead fish.

  ....It may have been one small step for man but it was one huge step for Blondie.
  
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  steve2

  The examples on this thread show that one of the most important steps in leaving the organization is getting baptized. For many it is a monumentally anti-climactic event that hastens leaving.
  
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  smiddy3

  I`m pretty sure it was Nov.12th 1959 when I was 20 years old and my GF was 18 yrs old we got dunked at the same C.A. in St.Albans a suburb of Melbourne Australia .

  I was surprised that I didn`t feel anything "special" at the time and I remember feeling very uncomfortable going D2D and not feeling any "Holy Spirit" on us.

  Like most of us here I put it on the back burner and didnt wake up till 33 years later .

  I`ll be 80 yrs old in July this year .
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  Black Sheep

  I'm about your age, Phoebe, so got the same lecture from my Dad, but I knew that the Ancient Worthies hadn't shown up in 1925 so their track record wasn't squeaky clean. I also knew that leaving without getting shunned was unlikely so baptism didn't look all that inviting.

  Deciding to get baptised was the best decision I never made. I'm not shunned by any JW family members. Relationships are stunted and are not what they should be and I'm careful what I say around them but, because I'm unbaptised, I do have some semblance of a normal relationship with my JW family and old JW friends even though I haven't been in a KH except for weddings and funerals since the 1975 debacle.
  
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  zeb

  Was pushed along with the wave of studying and love bombing.

  1. some elder type came into the change rooms and asked if anyone was being baptised for the second time..(wtf?) well me and one other guy were. He didnt ask anymore just swanned out of the room with his priceless bit of info never to be seen again. ..But ..I had been baptized into another church when i was younger but this self important one didn't ask that.
  2. Onya smiddy 3.. I never felt any special spirit anytime |i was witnessing... never.
  3. At a pre baptism talk the elder droned on almost opened a 'meeting in prayer' began to go on like he was doing a wt, got the gender of the young person (one) wrong on several occasions and finally shut up.
  4. It ever bugged me that B should be done as an after part of the endless talks not part of any program so while the mob go off to lunch some attend to baptism. This of course confirms that the wts regards its droning talks as more important.
  5. At one of the last conv I attended a little girl (apx 9 ) was Baptized. No comment.
  6. I was never given a card or letter of welcome or a bible though some elders sons were as part of any welcome hence i dont see i should have to 'resign' with any damn letter. This may be wrong logic but its how I feel.(and congregations dont have 'members' either according to a wt lawyer giving evidence at a court case in Victoria. jw are on 'their own personal mission..'
     
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  moreconfusedthanever

  I was 13. Got dunked with my brother. The only excitement of the day was the new bathing suit for the occasion, the new dress and my parents gave me a pet Budgie as a gift on the day.

  The brothers filmed the baptism because we were taken by bus off site so they replayed the baptism on screens during the lunch break.