Its nice to know that others feel the same way. Great posts.
Mindmelda-well said!!
How did you REALLY feel when you where out in field service?
by megaflower 42 Replies latest jw friends
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Finally-Free
For the most part I enjoyed it for the first few years I was a JW. It became a pain in the ass once I spent roughly 70 hours a month working alone when I was pioneering™. The group usually had an odd number of people showing up, so I mostly got stuck working alone.
Also, once the novelty of being a new JW wore off I discovered these people really weren't "friends". To the JWs I was nothing more than someone to be used for free favours. They were the 20 loneliest years of my life, and I really didn't feel inclined to invite others to join this emotional vacuum.
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Tuesday
Oh God I hated preaching. I wanted to do anything but preach. There was the fear of running into someone I knew from school. It was always either too hot or too cold to be preaching in a suit. I also hated that I was asking people to examine their religion when I felt I couldn't do the same. I think the worst I've felt was I went to a door with a nice christian couple that basically said "Trade with you, I'll take your tract if you take ours". I didn't care so I did, when I got back in the car I was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to destroy their tract and make sure not to even look at the first page. I felt like such a hypocrite, I was telling them to read my tract but I couldn't read theirs in return.
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babygirl75
I hated it with a passion! Couldn't wait for break time. I would pray that nobody would be home or just wouldn't come to the door. And OMG!...I would die if someone I knew came to the door! Especially when I was in school...that is a whole new level of torture!!
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White Dove
I thought: How is this using my time wisely, knocking on doors and only finding not at homes? So what if the angels saw me doing my duty. It quickly lost any purpose it was supposed to have when doors slammed shut or never opened in the first place. I began daydreaming of what I'd rather be doing on sunny mornings: Driving to the beach and playing! It made me feel like such a failure.
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Elsewhere
I haaated field service.
I was always mortified.
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bittersweet
Oh my. Babygirl and Tuesday had it right about bumping into a schoolmate. That was definately the worse torture ever. Once when out in service with this very social brother named Bob, I made the mistake of saying "hey, there's my next door neighbor Scott!" To which Bob slammed the brakes and rolled down the window and called over to this boy. I was probably 14 at the time, and I just wanted to DIE! I slunk down as far as I could in the seat, but to no avail. Needless to say Scott didn't let me forget about that! Ugh!
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White Dove
When I became an adult, I made sure NOT to get territory that had anyone I knew in it. When I was a kid, finding schoolmates at the doors was socially fatal. Horrible. Mortifying.
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no more kool aid
As a little kid I really hated it ( child of 2 pioneers). Most days I even went in service after school, ugh. Then when I grew up and got married, I felt about service like I do about cleaning the garage or the tile grout, I was happy when it was over. I had some sort of deluded accomplishment, although I never accomplished much for the colossal time investment. My kids absolutely hated every minute of it and were not afraid to say it, like I was.
Then there was seeing people that you knew from other aspects of the community and that was the worst feeling in the world. "Mom, why is grandma's nurse from the hospital standing on our porch?" How do you explain that one. Also, I never, ever made my kids work in the same territory as their school, too many horrid memories of that.
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megaflower
White Dove: I did the same thing, picked out territory that no one I new lived in. It was a deep sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you ran into someone you knew. I was never proud to be a JW. It was more something that I had to do or was made to do. AT DC and Circuit Ass they would give talks about Jehovah is a happy god and so his people should be happy. It just made me feel worse whwn they said that because being a JW made me very unhappy.
I have been out almost 2 years now and I can actually say, Yes, Iam happy.