Nice enough gentleman. The parts were pretty watered down. Many of the people giving parts I have known for quite a while and to see them in the role of giving assembly parts was kind of hilarious. We are kind of scraping the bottom in some instances I would say.
He seems younger than he is. Its my understanding he is over 80. His final talk was about 1 hr 20 min. Alot of pauses, and he knew how to work the crowd. Many would describe him as "funny".
It was asically the same ole same ole, but there were 4 interesting things that were said directly from his mouth that were interesting enough to share. Definitly "off script" because he wasn't looking down at the time. The analogies these guys come up with are sometimes painful.
1) In trying to say we need to take opportunities to preach he told the following "scenario". A woman sits next to you on the bus, and you have a tract and she seems friendly. You are hesitant because you are scared, but just that morning she was asking God (she doesn't know Jehovah so just asking a God), why he took her baby grandaughter from her. The preacher said God wanted another flower in his garden but that didn't sit right. Why is there injustice? what does it all mean? Well guess what. An angel heard that prayer, and sat her right next to you (makes pop sound and points), because you are a witness for Jehovah! Well angels don't make mistakes, but if you don't speak up I guess they kind of made a mistake putting her next to you (him and everyone laughs).
So besides being a bit bizarre, I didn't realize angels heard prayers? (maybe she was praying out loud?) Also I didn't realize angels manipulated the mundane acts of human being to get them to meet, and didn't make mistakes. All kind of interesting.
2) Weird analogy. Kid says he is ready to go. Mom asks him if he is ready.....did he clean off all the dirt? Kid is sure. Yeah mom! So she looks behind the ears and what does she see?......dirt. So she sends him back and tells him where to clean. So sometimes we think we are ready don't we? Come on and bring on Armaghedon!! But Jehovah sees we aren't ready and he just says "I don't want to kill all those people" (bro Heard and the entire place laugh while he says this). But hes telling us to get cleaned up.
3) He has a thing with being late to meetings. The occasional car accident, or flat tire in the rain is one thing. But if you are late all fo the time...why? The elder says "Oh sister its so good you were able to make it!".......because he is nice and all that. But really, you are disrupting the meeting. Its not like you ould be disfellowshipped for being late, but try to show some respect. (He mentioned the joke about being disfellowshipped for beign late twice)
So that is it. Generally nice and warm as far as a speaker goes. But shades of an older man with personal issues that make it hard. He prayed for the brothers and sisters in the Phillipines (not the others), and for Mark Sanderson who is there to bring comfort to them.