Service experiences

former2free

I know what you may be thinking by the title but bear with me. Have you ever reflected on past service experiences and think wow if only I had listened to a householder? Two things come to my mind of personal experience. 1. I remember someone in service asking me a question I couldn’t answer (big surprise right)? I told them I would look it up and return. I never went back. I guess it’s that feeling you get when you know you couldn’t possibly answer it with the organization material. And please don’t ask me to remember the question he asked I don’t remember but I remember the experience.

Another one was where someone offered me their literature and said they would take mine. Alarms going off in my head I wasn’t about to do that. Course later in life when you wake up to the real truth about the truth you know why you didn’t accept theirs.

But I was thinking about this and just how indoctrinated I used to be and how there was no critical thinking allowed. Do any of you have any experiences that you thought of later and just how crazy it is to think back and be like how did I not see this before?

snugglebunny

Just one. The householder said to me that I must really hate having to go from door to door and that a young man like me should be out enjoying himself at the weekend and not banging on doors holding a BIble.

former2free

Snugglebunny I bet you thought that at the time there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.

DesirousOfChange

It was a Bible Study (student) that helped awaken me to TTATT. He asked all those questions that cannot be answered (and that a JW cannot even ask). I doubt he has any idea that all the seeds he planted took root. I really suspect he was “counting his time”.

former2free

Desirous

Did you ever reach out to that person or are they in the org now and you can’t talk to them or I should say they can’t talk to you?

NVR2L8

Former2free, I had the exact two experiences and the householder knew more about the bible than I did. I told him I would do research but he wanted me to only use the bible to support my argument. He predicted that I wouldn't return...and he was right. Another return visit offered a CD from his church and I refused it while still expecting he would take my bible teach book...Today I realize how delusional I was...

OneEyedJoe

There was only one time that I remember...I think I was maybe 14 (maybe younger?) and it was one of my first times being allowed to go to the door with a friend of mine of similar age without a parent. One person we met gave us a pamphlet about CTR and his Millerite origin story, how he sold his clothing business for a gigantic sum and started a publishing company and scammed people with "miracle wheat" among other things. Obviously we didn't obey the cult's advice not to read it. We actually gave it to my friends parents and they read bits of it to us and we all had a great laugh at those "ridiculous made-up lies." In some ways I think it's rather advantageous just how obvious a scammer CTR was, because it makes the truth seem just so silly and blatantly fabricated to any JW that's had the cult's side of things beaten into them for years.

blondie

I did the opposite and went around and told everyone I had studied with or were studying not to any more if they had even one doubt.

Xanthippe

Yes there was a psychologist who said she had a lot of clients that were very disturbed JWs. I just remember she spoke in a very syrupy hypnotic voice and she put me right off but I wished I'd stayed and listened.

Another person said he was a philosopher and was making a lot of sense to my husband and myself but it made me feel ill listening to him. How I wished I'd listened to him.

Still Totally ADD

It was 1977 and I was about 23 years old at the time going door to door in Elfers fl. The householder show me the book 20 years a watchtower slave. He told me I need to read this book. Of course I said no then I said the person who wrote that book must not of been to smart for taking 20 years to figure out he was a slave of the watchtower. It took me 55 years to figure it out. I guess I am really, really dumb. Better later than never. Lol. Still Totally ADD

Service experiences

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