neverendingjourney

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Posts by neverendingjourney

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  44

  Men are not looking forward to becoming Elders or Ministerial Servants

  by Hidden-Window in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have noticed an apparently increasing number of men who are not interested in becoming ministerial servants or elders.

  i also know of some that have voluntarily stepped down (which is my case) for no obvious solid reason.. i remember, during my teenage years or even during my twenties, the brothers were always looking forward to being appointed... although many still do, i have noticed there are many others with whom you do not know what the deal is.. since there is no freedom of speech within the organization, we remain in the dark about the motives and desires of everybody else.

  i attend a congregation with only two ministerial servants, while it is full of men who do not seem to be willing to do more.. it is hard to tell exactly what is going on, since honesty is not possible while you are inside, but i am starting to think that more and more are becoming disillusioned.... .

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  neverendingjourney

  Have JW women "lowered" their standards?

  When I was in, a lot of women wouldn't consider dating a man unless he was serving in some official capacity. On the flip side, having some sort of appointment could give a young man access to women he'd otherwise have no shot with. The incentive was such that a lot of young male JWs would seek the appointment even if they weren't fully invested in JWism.

  The farce was clearly visible back then, but people still insisted on the formality. I can think of many examples of young women passing up young men they had interest in to marry a "spiritual brother" (i.e., one with an appointment) only to have the "spiritual brother" fall out of "the truth" altogether and begin treating her like garbage.
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  58

  Window-washer is the cover of Feb 2015 WT, "How to enjoy your work!" Hahaha!!

  by EndofMysteries in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

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  after all the jokes and satire on this website about jw's only being able to amount to window washers and house cleaners, the cover page of "how to enjoy your work" showing a window washer and cleaner in the back ground.

  i almost wonder if some awakened, still-in, from this site is part of the writing department or illustrations and put that in there as an inside joke for us?.

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  neverendingjourney

  "Hard work" JW-style has the virtue of not being troubled by retirement plans. The end is so very near, preparing for one's retirement is unnecessary

  There was an elderly JW lady in an adjacent hall who died a few years back. She and her husband converted and were baptized in one of the big NY assemblies during the 50s. They had a falling out with both of their families over religion. Their only son was mentally handicapped and had died prior to when I first met her. So had her husband.

  She lived a model JW lifestyle. Worked a few odd jobs here and there in order to focus on service. Needless to say, she had next to nothing saved up for retirement. The congregation quickly tired of her. She was left on the curbside of her assisted living facilty more than once, her ride failing to show up. The "brothers" made little effort to hide their discontent of being given the "privilege" of picking her up. Eventually, they tired of it and made her call in to the meetings. Her health quickly deteriorated and the elders jumped on the chance to put her in a full-on nursing home where she was largely forgotten. She died several years later and few people showed up to her funeral.

  This was her reward for a lifetime of obedience. Even though she died nearly a decade ago, I still tear up when I think about it. She was a very sweet lady and didn't deserve it. She made a dumb decision to join a cult, like many of us did, but there was nothing but warmth and kindness in her heart. Choices have consequences, though, even when those choices originate from good intentions.
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  55

  No longer to use "house to house record" slips and "please follow up slips"!

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a letter has just been read out indicating that effective immediately, witnesses are no longer to use the s-8 slip known as the "house to house" record slip, as well as the s-43 "please follow up" slip (usually used for foreign language people).. the letter stated that this is because of the changes in privacy laws etc that are becoming common in the world today.. i will try and get a copy of the full letter and post it asap.. .

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  neverendingjourney

  Further proof the end is getting nearer.
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  29

  Family Gathering ( or the day also known as Thanksgiving)

  by Theredeemer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  every year on a certain thursday in november my family and close witness friends would get together, eat menudo ( hispanic stew) and other foods, watch football and then get dressed to go to the meeting.. sister so and so would bring her famous pie, bro and sister so and so would bring their gross punch and bro and sis so and so would bring mexican sweet bread.

  sometimes we would go to "worldy" aunt's and pick up plates of turkey and fixins.. this was every year on a certain date, on a certain thursday in november.. this continued until my mom got alzheimers.

  by that time i was married and had my own house.

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  neverendingjourney

  My family is of Mexican descent. We would often go to Mexico when we were kids and we'd spend New Year's with the extended family (non-JWs). We popped fireworks, ate delicious food, the adults drank beer. The only thing we weren't allowed to do was to go around hugging everyone at midnight and saying "Happy New Year." Somehow this was okay.

  On the flip side, I once found myself as an adult on vacation during Thanksgiving with a witness friend. Most restaurants were closed. We ended up going to a local place that offered a buffet and he about blew a gasket when he saw I had put some turkey on my plate. In his mind eating turkey on Thanksgiving was the same as celebrating it. Glad I don't have to deal with that nonsense anymore.
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  65

  Doctors and surgeons say no to blood transfusions

  by Mr Negative in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  my mum recently told me that even surgeons won't have blood transfusions, but the common people don't get told this.

  i have also seen or heard others say that a bunch of doctors/health officials/surgeons were asked, at some point, if they would accept a blood transfusion and they all said no.

  is this true?

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  neverendingjourney

  If I go to the doctor sick with the flu, I'll refuse a blood transfusion.

  If, on the other hand, I've lost a lot of blood after a car accident, I would absolutely accept a blood transfusion.

  I'm no doctor, but the context in which these statements were made matters.
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  107

  Will firing the DOs be the first step to a new Watchtower?

  by Juan Viejo2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  against my better judgement, i've decided to share the following as a response to guy pierce passing and the announcement of the elimination of district overseers later this year.. late in january (2014) i got an email from one of my contacts (a fader) who served at bethel for several years, but is no longer at wt hq.

  he still has a lot of close contacts within the service department and in other departments at patterson and knows people in all of the ny offices.

  i kept this email set aside on a flash drive and haven't shared it with anyone - figuring i'd publish an article about it later this year when i had more time to do it right.

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  neverendingjourney

  If you stick around long enough, you'll see a pattern here on the board. Every now and then a stir is created by people who post news they received from inside sources regarding upcoming changes. Most of the time it turns out to be wishful thinking and hyperbole. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather they pass along the info than not, but readers should to be shrewd enough to take such posts with a large grain of salt.

  I don't think it's necessarily malicious. When I was a young ambitious JW a CO shared a confidential inside scoop he'd gotten from his son who was a bethelite in Brooklyn. The society had decided to stop printing deluxe bibles, so I should take advantage and order one or two while I still had the chance. Before long, everybody in the congregation had heard the rumor and it spread quickly. Turns out the society had decided no such thing. Some 10 years passed and they were still printing deluxe bibles. For all I know they're still printing them.

  JWs lead a boring monotonous life and any "inside scoop" can quickly morph and take on a life of it's own. Eventually, some of those rumors end up on this board for us to read.
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  16

  Why do "Awake" vloumes only start at 1970 on computer disk?...interesting!

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  yet watchtowers go way back to 1950's....i picked up three awake volumes 1967-1969 i was struck by the poor science {aluminium is posion}, demon articles and anti-organ transplant articles.

  also much was said about 1975 being the end of the system and "the generation.

  " it feels like fred franz was writting alot of these which now is plain embarrasing and better left un-published.. .

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  neverendingjourney

  What gets me about the "it's old information so I don't care" mindset is the double standard.

  They'll happily denounce the Catholic Church for its 500 year old crimes (Inquisition, treatment of Galileo, etc.), but their own religion should not be judged by crap they wrote 50 years ago.
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  11

  Interview with an "Unbelieving Mate" (UBM): Gary Neal

  by garyneal in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

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  neverendingjourney

  Now that I think about it more, most of the UBM's that I can recall were always the husbands.

  There was a recurring pattern in my area with recent female converts with UBMs. They would often talk about their husbands as these terrible monsters who persecuted them for their faith, but almost in every case when you actually met these men they were very normal and even docile. You could see the embarrasment in some of these women's faces when their UBM attended meetings. Lots of these women (like a lot of JW converts) were mentally damaged and were looking for sympathy.

  There was this one lady whose husband eventually became a witness. I remember on one occassion over lunch a few witnesses asked the husband how he could have been so cruel to his wife before he became a witness and he was dumbstruck. He didn't know his wife had been spreading these lies about him and she looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. He eventually became an elder. The one who actually ended up on the receiving end of the congregation's empathy was the husband because he was a stand up guy married to a crazy gossip.
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  23

  JWs - A View From Outside

  by Joe Grundy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i never was a jw (i make this point in - almost - every post) but having been brought up ('raised' for our us cousins) in a non-conformist fundy sect with 'rapture' aspirations, it wasn't that different.. i still have extended family members in it, or in that mindset, but we rarely discuss religion.

  in particular, my sister and bil lost their son (my nephew) some years ago when he was just 13. their comfort is that he is in a 'better place' and i don't want to challenge that to them.. i keep up with all things jw here in this forum and maintain my academic interest and these are just my thoughts as an outsider, for what they are worth.. ime, those people who have heard of jws tend to lump them in with mormons and other crazies and have no knowledge or interest in them - other than to warn neighbours when they are about.. where i live should be prime 'witnessing' territory but they rarely come round, even in the recent leafletting campaign.

  they are not as effective as the people who regularly call with the latest menus from the local curry/chinese/kebab houses.. on the occasions when jws have called, despite invitations to come in and have a cup of tea, etc., none has ever wanted to engage in conversation, far less progress to an invitation to a kh meeting or start a bible study (and i always present myself as an 'imterested householder').. my conversations with people in general and friends in the real world lead me to conclude that few people have heard of jws, those that have regard them as a minor irrevelant nuisance and that there is no interest in their message or beliefs.. a few months ago i did a 'drive-past' of the million pound seafront property in bangor, north wales that wt recently bought for use as a 'translation office' (ha ha!).

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  neverendingjourney

  They are at best a minor footnote in history.

  I was terrified at first that people would find out about my JW past and would be able to deduce what a weird and awkward upbringing I had. It was a surprise to learn that for the most part people had very little to no idea what it meant. Many simply didn't care. They don't have the context to be able to appreciate what it fully means.

  Losing the fear of having people discover I was once a JW was a big step forward in my recovery.
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  40

  Armageddon will be here in less than 4 years!

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  that's the word according to my mil.

  mrs hoser is starting a new career and the college and work training will take her four years to complete.

  her mom is giving her a hard time telling her that the system will be over before she graduates.

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  neverendingjourney

  That's great news! My car loan is for 6 years!!! I end up saving a lot of money!

  In the late 90s I followed the WT's recommendation and enrolled in a technical course of study. I took out some student loans and one of the options was a graduated repayment plan where the monthly payment kept getting bigger as time passed. I felt I was getting one over on them by agreeing to it since Armageddon would arrive before I finished paying my loan. Five years later I ended up rolling it into a student loan I had taken out to pay for a legit college education. Since it got consolidated into my college loans, I will probably end up paying three times the value of the loan by the time I'm done. They give out the worst advice when it comes to higher education and vocational training.