Our KH has 79 regular attendees, last night there were 190+ at the Memorial, and we had a late start time. There were a lot of non-JW family members attending, they won't convert let alone study. They attended to appease their JW family member. There were about 10 Bible studies and their families. I was actually glad to see them at the Memorial, let me tell you why.
The brother giving the talk is very old-school style and has little to no tact. The entire talk was cold and even a bit harsh. He said things like, "Only Christ's brothers eat & drink, since none of us here are in that special group we will respectfully observe".
The two brothers that offered prayer over the bread & wine are old, honorific elders in title only but no other responsibilities. The brother praying over the bread got confused and said we can all eat the bread, and then a few seconds later added we eat the bread symbolically. The brother praying over the wine gave about a 3 minute prayer and kept repeating the same thing over again, the speaker kept clearing his throat hoping the brother would wrap the prayer up.
One visiting couple was on the second row from the front, they laughed and whispered when the speaker was talking about the 144,000. At the end they didn't even stand to sing. One older sister brought her adult daughter (never baptized), son-in-law, and son-in-law's mom. The son-in-law went outside after the passing of the bread and didn't come back in. And after the meeting son-in-law's mom was in a heated discussion with the older sister and one of the elders assigned to greet newcomers on that side of the KH.
I think the WTS is its own worst enemy when it comes to the Memorial. JW meetings are already weird to the uninitiated, and so their most holy event comes off looking cultish. I was glad to see so many people looking confused, but at the same time I was embarrassed to be there.
