I have enjoyed reading many personal experienses so I would like to share mine:
My mother started to study with the JWs when I was 6. Some of the things that attacked my mother were their used of the Bible and when she had problems she was giving an ear. The Catholic leaders that would refuse to hear her telling her that they were too busy. She also had a lot of questions and the JWs provided answers that made sense to her.
At first she dragged one of my sisters with her to the meetings but after 6 months I was dragged with them as well. During this time we had joined the boy scouts where every Saturday I had fun playing with the activities they would plan from us. The watchtower meetings where on Saturday so eventually my mother decided she had to pull us out from the boy scouts. We loved going camping with the boy scouts but my mother had decided going to the meetings was more important. Maybe if the meetings had been on Sunday we would have been part of the boy scouts a bit longer but the outcome would have been the same.
I remember at first the meetings were so boring for me that I would often fall sleep, if I didn’t behave my mom would pinch me. After a while I would scream if she pinched me so she stopped but it was worse when we got home. One thing that started to make the meetings better was that I made some friends and we started playing marbles and other games after the meetings. This was great to me because seem like my mom took forever to leave the meetings however this didn’t last. They gave a talk about how the house of God was not a playground and lettings your kids play after the meeting outside the Hall was inappropriate so that stopped.
Around 8 years when my reading had improved the meetings where no longer a boring fest I could actually follow along and start to give comments shortly after I enrolled in the theocratic school which I really liked.
When I was 9 years old the education department in Mexico started a scholarship program and I was chosen. I was pretty happy but it bothered me that my mom asked one of the MS if it was appropriated for us to accept the scholarship. At this time there was no elders in our congregations only 2 MS. He told her that the society had information about everything that he would investigate and get back to her. I remember praying that week and asked God that if he allowed me to accept the scholarship I would buy the concordance book in gratitude this was around 1989 and in Mexico you still had to pay for literature. He told my mom that the society doesn’t oppose scholarships. I was pretty happy as long as I kept my grades I could keep receiving the scholarship.
I was pretty happy at school during this time had a lot of friends. I really liked school and learning. JW were still a small part of my life. My teachers liked me I remember they would let me lead games to prepare the class for tests. Being the youngest in my family I had like 3 mothers. Two of my older sisters always made sure I did my homework and made sure I knew the information the teacher was covering. History was my favorite subject at this point.
The only issue that I remember was that since we were studying with the JWs we couldn’t salute the flag. This was a big issue in Mexico many JWs during this time got kicked out from schools for failing to solute and sing the National anthem. The principal met with my mother and decided that he would let us stay as long as we were respectful during the anthem.
My father had been living in the US for many years already. They got into a fight and somehow decided that it was best if we all moved to the US. However my oldest siblings refused to move, my brother was soon starting the University and moving to the US would just put them behind. So it was only my mother, two of my sisters and I that had to move. The plan was that we would stay in the US for only a year or so. I didn’t want to move leaving my other siblings my friends my school was a bit painful.
Once we arrived it didn’t take long for my mom to get in touch with JWs. One pioneer started studying with us and help my mom enrolled my two sisters and I in school. The transitions was rough a total cultural shock. I went from being one of the smartest kids at my school and most popular to an idiot that couldn’t even communicate. I would cry because I couldn’t do the homework and didn’t know what to do my dad that knew a bit of English couldn’t help me. So from straight As I wet to Cs and Ds for the next 2 years.
One thing that helped me was that the education in Mexico City was ahead of what I encounter here. I was about to start pre-Algebra in Mexico in 5 th grade. So math and science I didn’t fall behind but other subjects where foreign to me. I had to put up with racism and being made fun off. I didn’t fit in. There were 4 kids that spoke Spanish in my class but they only used bag words or talked about sex pretty big contrast to my friends in Mexico. So I was force to be on my own a loner. I used to play soccer in Mexico nobody played soccer in the area I arrived it was banned. You couldn’t play without adult supervision so eventually I turn into basketball. You can’t really play soccer by yourself.
I turn to the JWs for friends but there were no kids my age and kids a few years older than me started to hate me. I was used to being corrected when I spoke Spanish and used to being around people that spoke proper Spanish. So I started correcting everyone even elders after the meetings. Eventually I learn people don’t like it. Later my so called JW friends told me that they hated me for several years. Plus I read as good or better than most adults so I was asked to read at the book study by the time I was 11 and the Watchtower by the time I was 14.
When we started attending we were pressure to get baptized. In Mexico there is no way they would have let us baptized yet but here in the congregation we arrived to one of the elder just liked to baptized everyone. I really liked him one of the most humanitarians mans I have ever met. But if I got baptized at 10 years old was because I was pressured. I liked the elder saw him as my dad I didn’t want to say no. My mom my two sisters and I baptized in the same convention.
I remember when I got baptized the following meeting I didn’t have a tie. The same elder that got me baptized told me that I needed to wear a tie and a jacket he said he wanted to use me but could not. That was not what I saw in Mexico even elders would not always were jackets from the platform I told him we were very poor and could not afford that, so he had his wife take my mom shopping to a 2 nd hand store where they paid for some cloths for us. So from then on I always had a tie and a jacket at the meetings.
I finished my 8 th grade with a 4.33 GPA. I had Algebra 1 and German 1 both giving 5 for an A. One teacher asked me to promise her I would go to college that I owed it to my family and my community. I told her I couldn’t even though I like learning God was more important than college. I tried not to close the door for University taking most college prep-courses in High School but 8 th grade was probably the last year I put as much effort in school as I could when compared to HS. I continue to excel in science and math but slowly I stopped trying hard on other subjects. English has always been my weakest subject I remember in my sophomore year the teacher would make the following deal that he gave a test at the end of the year about study skills if you got a 85 or higher on that test he would raise your grade by a whole letter grade. By this time Bethel and becoming a CO was my main goal so I figure why waste time on a subject I won’t use much. I was pioneering (90 hours per month) by this time so reading books in English and writing essays was on the bottom of my list. I ended up with an F. Since I didn’t do anything in that class miss the class quite a bit on the study skills test I got 84 out of 100 I asked him to give me a D that I was only off by 1. He refuse telling me that the deal was 85 out of 100 not 84. I had to retake that semester for being foolish.
I started pioneering at age 15 went to the pioneer school at age 16. This helped me overcome the pressure I had at school. I had pressure from peers to play basketball and coaches. One of the coaches would let me practice with the basketball team and scream at me why I wasn’t on his team. All I could tell him was that I was a JWs and couldn’t. I think he would let me practice with the hope I would change my mind. There were several sports I was good at I was running a mile in 4:37 and not many played soccer so making the soccer team would have been easy. But the only sport I really wanted to join was basketball. Being almost 6’ 2” helps of course. Guys from the basketball team would tell me ‘you are such an idiot you could join the basketball team and go out with any girl in the school you want’. My calculus teacher paid for my AP exam he told me he couldn’t let me not take it that I was a 5 for sure and that the school didn’t produce that many 5s. There was a girl that got a 1550 on her SATs that only got a 4 on the AP Calculus test while I got a 5. She was upset saying how it was possible that I missed class a lot and that she was smarted than me(I was missing classes specially first period so I could go out a few hours in the morning when I would fall behind on my time). I would just smile and would think ‘Even if you are smarted than me, not in math, you are going to be destroyed in Armageddon and I am not’. Thinking how the basketball team would be destroyed in big A and all those college grads would keep me sane. I judge everyone. I felt superior to everyone that wasn’t a JW because I had the truth and would survive big A in a way I felt sorry for them. I would also watch for bad associations.
After the pioneer school the elders started to groom me to be a ministerial servant. Becoming a MS at 17 was my obsession. So from 16 when asked by school peers why I wasn’t going to college or playing for the team I would tell them my goal was to become a ministerial servant at 17 and how big of a privilege that would be. How I could help my congregation spiritually be able to go out to different congregations and give 45 minute talks and that it was the beginning of a spiritual career.
The elders started to take advantage of me. I couldn’t say no to privileges and if I dare to think about saying no they would remind me that I wouldn’t be named MS if I couldn’t handle the responsibility. They became very anal about many details. For example they would tell me look if you want to be named MS you need to sake every ones hand at the beginning and end of the meeting. The congregation needs to respect you so need to cut down your conversations with young people, and if you want to be named you need to be at least 15 minutes before every meeting. Being 15 minutes early was hard for me because I dependent on my family to get there and they liked to get there around 5-10 minutes before the meeting. I told them my circumstances the elder told me that it was my problem that I wouldn’t be recommended if I couldn’t do that. So I asked a brother that lived close to my house to give me a ride, that brother did it for about 1 year. I lived over 3 miles from the hall.
Things in the congregation where going well. Having a pioneer still in HS is not very common in the Spanish congregations. And since our speakers were pretty bad it was not common for my congregation to have parts at the assemblies but since I was pioneering I was getting presentations and interviewed at the assemblies I even got to write a sketch for one of the pioneer yearly meetings. The setting was 4 publishers where driving a car and talking about parties and how some people got in trouble and they started talking bad about the elders my role was to make them see how we shouldn’t criticize the elders. There was a new CO in that meeting so the CO that has asked me to do the sketch was gone. He was so please with the part that he looked for me after the meeting to tank me and tell me how individual like me made their job very easy.
There was some jealously from other young guys but didn’t bother me much. When we talk about goals and I would mention CO the guys that didn’t know me would say no way, but there would usually be someone that knew me that would comment something like ‘I don’t doubt it he has what it takes’.
On my congregation some brothers would shake my hand and say the ‘famous [name]’. The first time I heard it I ask why they told me that more people had heard about me than anybody else in the congregation. I remember a few occasions when I would be talking to a pretty girl in the convention and later as the conversation would progress she would tell me oh you are the pioneer going to high school I heard about you. I remember even in the English congregations that outside my congregation I was known.
Some of the jealous guys talk trash saying I would never be named MS at 17 because I was too immature. That would hurt because for one they hardly knew me and two I was working pretty hard for it. I really wanted to prove them wrong.
Pioneering help me used the Bible as good as a JW will get. In the Spanish community in the US there are very few people that know the Bible so it was pretty easy to convince them I had 10 studies at one point. However they also move a lot especially in rural areas so you can have 10 studies one month and only a few the next because the rest moved back to their home country or moved somewhere else for another job. I met a few born again Christians but they didn’t present much of a problem probably because they were not that knowledgeable. Sometime they would get frustrated because I would have them agree on something then they would try to change the subject, proof them wrong (or so I though then) then they would try to go back to the same thing they had already agreed on. I loved debating with them even encounter a guy with an apostate book but I assume he didn’t know enough or how to use the book because he couldn’t counter the answers I would give to his questions.
At one point we talk about the Governing Body during this time I thought nothing of the GB. I would even tell them look I cannot give you the name of the JW’s president. I read it somewhere but it is not important to me. What other religion can you tell me that cares so little about their president. And you know why we have a president only for legal reason that is it. We follow Jesus not some GB. I was pretty convinced that what we preach was from the Bible every single thing. I would even challenge the household if you show me something that I believe or do that is not in the Bible right now I’ll change my mind because the Bible is what we follow not some man in Brooklyn. I didn’t notice GB worshiping until later in life.
I forgot what book I read it was very old from 40-50s. The book kept making parallels to some bible passages to events that happen with the watchtower in the 1900s. I kept telling myself the leap is pretty big anybody could claim the same thing. If I wasn’t a JW I was reading this book I would say this is BS. I remember asking an Elder about it. I told him if I didn’t trust the society I would have a hard time believing this book. He told me that the book was for believers not for the general public and for mature spiritual brothers. My take from the conversation was to focus on the new light that those books might have information that no longer applies that I should keep up with God’s car. He was the TMS conductor and he told me how if someone quoted from the AID book he would tell them that we no longer used the AID book that it was outdated. So I told myself not to waste time with this outdated books.
Also I couldn’t do much studying I was too busy doing other things. Like I mention earlier elders where taking advantage of me. Because the elders knew I wanted to be a MS the MS school conductor was the elder I was the closest to he was a relative young elder but he started asking more and more. I had to be ready to give any talk in the school if someone couldn’t do it or didn’t’ show up. I would go to the back room at times and prepare them in 10 minutes or so. He was in charge of territories and I was his auxiliary but he had me doing most of the heavy lifting. Territories can be pretty time consuming especially because you have to keep track of all the Spanish numbers and verify them when brothers do census. In rural areas the directions where hard to find specially when there are many trailers in the same area. Sometimes we would get something like “behind white house next to green trailer where dog is barking”.
I was doing all the lists on the bulletin board. The only one they would give me to type was the service meeting but all other lists I was doing. The school list I would show it to the TMS conductor for approval and corrections. Not many people on the congregation used computers nor typewrites and elders would tell me they were very slow to please do it. Some nights I would go to sleep very late finishing something they had asked me to do. My mom would tell me ‘son you don’t have to do this tell them you are doing a lot already’. I was also in charge of magazine subscriptions. I would take out the service groups some evenings, literature auxiliary but my overseer was afraid to do the orders. Some MS in the Spanish congregations can barely read.
My family had been struggling financially pretty much since we arrived my dad would make around $1200 per month with 5 mouths to feed. His overtime would help out and since my mom never wanted to learn how to drive she couldn’t find and keep a job. The area where we arrive had no public transportation. Since I was 12 my mom got a gig to make flowers. You get a fake flower some decoration and a transparent plastic and roll it. Later they added a small bear they used to sell at gas stations for $0.99. At first if I worked my fastest I could get about $10 per hour however I couldn’t sustain that speed for more than a few hours. They reduced the pay to less than half I would tell my mom: ‘We are being exploited. We don’t even make minimum wage anymore!’ But my mom kept doing them long after we had moved on.
At 17 I begin working for an auto parts store. I wanted to help my family and rolling flowers was a terrible gig. I was working about 10 hours per week. So to recap I was pioneering, going to HS, working and kissing elders ass(doing most if not all their lists for the bulletin board), magazine subscriptions, literature, so I could be named MS at 17.
During this time the Spanish congregations were growing so fast the CO would not visit twice per year. More like every 9 or 10 months while I was 17-18. So I only had one shot at becoming a MS at 17.
So the visit finally arrived I was about 17 ½ I was pretty confident with my chances. I went out with the CO he happen to fall asleep while I drove to one of my studies that was about 30 minutes from the hall. I didn’t think too much of it he looked pretty tired. I had giving talk #4 the day before the told me that looked like I had been giving those parts for many years that he had no suggestion to give me.
The weeks after the CO left I was very anxious. I prayed God a lot to please help me obtain this one goal that it would be the beginning of my service for his congregation that would end with my dead or big A. I thought of all the things I had given up and how this would make up for everything else. I wanted to serve the congregation but at the same time I needed a reassurance that this was worth it and this goal was everything to me.
Probably a month later during a Sunday meeting the PO calls me to the back room. During this time there was a MS school announce and it was going to be 2 days I believe. He told me congratulations you will be named MS. You can make arrangements to stay at a hotel for the MS school. However he told me to keep it private that I couldn’t tell anybody until they made the announcement. I asked him how to make arrangements if I cannot tell anybody. He said you are right wait until we announce it then but congratulations.
I was just going to call around to find out how much it would be per night but I figure that could wait. I felt like I was floating. It was an emotion of pride, accomplishment, and hard to describe to finally accomplish a goal I had been working for several years.
But at the same time I felt sad I couldn’t share it with anybody until it was official. Well I didn’t have to wait long the following Wed they asked me to meet with them.
