by return visitor 20 Replies latest jw friends
Hi all,
I had a boat that I always wanted to name "Return Visits" that way whenever I was asked why I wasn't in field service on Saturday I could respond, "I went out on return visits" and nobody would be the wiser.
Just wondering, did anyone else come up with a good way to dodge that question?
RV
A little while before giving up field service altogether, while I was still an elder, I would turn up to field service meetings and then have to go off to do some congregational business. Or somtimes I would do as you did and make up return visits. Usually though my return visits were to the coffe shop or sometimes the pub!!
I used to say I was going on return visits as well, but in reality I'd more often than not go round to my mums for a coffee, and stay for a couple of hours.
I had an alarm clock with inexplicable malfunctions. It never went off on fs days. I was told to replace it with a reliable clock, but you know, I was just so fond of that clock I never could get rid of it.
I got a job that required me to work Saturdays. Unfortunately, they were closed on Sundays and evenings, so I had to attend meetings.
Why did you need excuses? I ordered 3-4 of each magazine every month. Used one as my personal copy. (This was when they still had mail subscriptions.) So that placed 4 magazines each month, to me. I went out in service 1 time each month, usually the first weekend. Spent 3 hours tooling around with whatever car group. Counted it as 8-10 hours (8 hours for 4 Saturdays, 10 hours for 5 Saturdays) each service month. Either nobody cared or nobody noticed. One time I was lucky enough to not even be noticed at the service meeting. When the Elder asked if he got everybody, I said nothing. Prayer was said and I left, went home and enjoyed the Saturday. I still counted my 8-10 hours for the month.
If I ever indicated that I would be out that morning but didn't show up, the go-to reply was "family errand" and no one would bother me any further.
We had a huge group of teens in our kingdom hall and occasionally a few of us managed to get into the same "car group". There was one pioneer who was only a couple of years older than us and she owned her own vehicle. She would get a few of us together since she always had her own territory card and would suggest she take us to her assigned corner of the world for an hour and then would finish us up with some return visits. What a fine example all of our parents believed she was setting for us. We would squeeze as many peeps as possible into her tiny vehicle and make a beeline for the nearest convenient store. We would slide a magazine into the phone booth to start our time and then load up on drinks and snacks and begin a tour of our fine metroplex. We would crank up our sinful music on the barely working radio and sing at the top of our lungs while driving all over Ft. Worth and Dallas. Those were some fun times :).
I lived by myself, didn't have to answer to anyone except for the end of the month and that little piece of paper. But YOU KNOW I worked in landscaping with lots of spanish speaking people and I witnessed to them ALL the time. (Note sarcasim here)
Yes, like Mariposa, I filled a good portion of my time with "informal" witnessing. One Elder was so impressed with my "informal" witnessing that he had me on the Thursday meeting talking about it. Oh God did I have to make up some crap just to make it sound like I actually did "informal" witnessing.
