Recent activities at the laundermat and Payless shoe store

by loosie 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  only me

  Hey Steve2 - Take my word for it, mice would never distribute garbage like that!
• 

  steve2

  Hey Steve2 - Take my word for it, mice would never distribute garbage like that!

  Oops, I humbly take your word for it, only me. No offence intended
• 

  only me

  no problem Steve
• 

  glentrevette

  my old congregation sisters had a laundermat route only they could do our congregation had the highest magazine total in the circuit i was so proud of being a member of that hall the congregation i attended in downtown toronto had 52 regular pioneers one month we had 192 bible studies the most in canada i truly have been blessed to be a part of those 2 congregations not
• 

  satinka

  My friend went back to that ailse to see if any shoes needed to be put away. She found Jw tracts stuffed in the kids shoe boxes and mags left under the boxes on the shelf.

  LOL!!!...Yeah...the jw woman probably went back to the Service Meetin' and told the whole congregation about her new way of counting time! And the entire congregation thought she was brilliant and innovative!

  Oops, I forgot... only "brudders" are allowed to be brilliant and innovative.

  satinka
• 

  freeflyingfaerie

  no way! that is hilarious! as if someone would really think god was behind that little operation
• 

  Broken Promises

  Ingenious but bizarre.
• 

  Heaven

  Actually, that kinda creeps me out, the leaving material in shoe boxes. It's like they're being somewhat subversive; kind of sneaky.

  One of my colleagues was furious that her underage teenage son was being recruited by JWs. She did not feel that the JW material was appropriate and the fact that they are Catholic was even more reason for her to be ticked.

  Is the cult specifically targetting kids now?

  edited to add: Seriously, if I opened up a shoe box and that stuff was inside, I'd be totally creeped out.
• 

  poppers

  If I owned a store and someone did that I would be furious. I would call up the local congregation and complain. I would also put up a No Soliciting sign that specifically mentioned religious materials.

  I agree. That's way out of line, and just plain creepy. Look what they resort to in order to get out their message; if that isn't cult induced behavior nothing is. Put those local people on notice that such activity isn't permissable and that if they do it again a complaint will be filed with the police.
• 

  Larsinger58

  Sounds like desperation to me.

  If you are pioneering and there is no territory, you have to try to place your magazines. But you can count magazines you leave at different places. So seems me they had lots of magazines to get rid of and this was one desperate opportunity to leave the magazines.

  Sometimes this gets to be ridiculous. For instance, I grew up in Compton when there were just a few witnesses, but soon this area great incredibly fast and almost every other year they were dividing the congegation and dividing up the territory. There were so many witnesses that the territory got worked almost every single week. It was hard on pioneers who were given like two blocks of their own territory.

  But this spilled out into public as well. Many youth were motivated to pioneer. But to get in their time, they had to start early and do "street work", which meant standing out in front of do-nut shops that opened early. There was one do-nut shop right near the Kingdom Hall, and on any given morning there were lines of witnesses all around the do-nut shop. More witnesses than customers. I was sooo embarrassed. Some elder should hae limited the number of witnesses working any business out of respect for that business. But it wasn't done. Plus some of the brothers were pioneers from other congregations which meant little, because the congregations were clustered together. It was nice to see the zeal, but this was ridiculous.

  This was clearly a case where spending more time in the "field" wasn't needed. That's why pioneers like myself, actually longed to go "where the need was greater", which I did one summer.

  But even then, there is a temptation to pad the hours. For instance, I went to serve in Magnolia, Arkansas when I was 16. There you had to travel a couple of hours to outlying book studies which only had a handful of witnesses in another town. Further, we were not permitted to work the white homes, only the black ones. (I was in the black congregation) Back then the whites and blacks were still separated in the small Southern communities.

  At any rate, the territory was vast and they had days when you'd drive for hours to get to little pockets of blacks in these small towns. So most of the time was spent driving and talking and chatting in the car. But, if you didn't start your witnessing work in the local town, you'd lose all those hours driving to these towns in the field. So, we always started with some call or street work in town so we could count the hours spent driving to the territory. So if you were pioneering, you'd get your hours in but you probably only talked to like 3 or 4 isolated people in these little towns.

  Anyway, I know how it is when you have all those magazines to get rid of and you run out of ideas and start being creative.

  I shouldn't tell this, but some young pioneers where I lived in Compton, figured that if they were "advertising" they could count the time. So for some of their time they would put the Watchtower on their dash board while they were driving around. So when they were driving around they were "counting time." So the issue of just "counting time" and"making time count" was something understood by most.

  I'll say this. I was very young, gay to most people though I didn't realize it myself. So I was in a lot of scenarios entering homes of men who liked young boys. As I look back, I can see their interest in the magazines or a sermon. They would invite me in to their homes and sometimes compromised activity would take place. As I look back I realize it was a gay scenario. But also, women! I was a young black male alone and one woman wanted to have her Bible study in her bedroom. She was scantilly dressed. No husband at home. I only casually thought of how inapproriate that was. Most times they wanted you to make the move. They wouldn't do much but provide the opportunity.

  Since then, women are not allowed to go from door to door alone and even young men are cautioned to always have a companion in the field, simply because it is simply dangerous.

  Memories like these make me feel so relieved I'm out of the clutches of that religion, which is clearly now out of Jehovah's favor.

  LS