As I was saying before The Watchtower Literature Trolley has arrived in my little town...
My wife and I were in town this afternoon and I saw one of my former elder colleagues standing beside the trolley talking to a young man and reading to him from one of their books. Ray was one my least favourite people - he was everything that is bad about JW elders. I went up to them and interrupted and told the man that this is a cult recruitment campaign. Ray was like a rabbit in the headlights as I told the man briefly how the Watchtower breaks up families. It was a brief interaction but it made me happy.
About half an hour later I noticed Ray and Veronica had handed over to two young men that I didnt know. While my wife was in a few shops I went up for a chat. To cut a very long story short they were from Poland and had been un the UK about 6 years. They had become JWs since moving here. I was honest with him about my upbringing as a JW and that I had been a local pioneer and elder before leaving in '95. He said that he had been told that a lot of JWs had left the congregation in '95 and he knew my name.
Anyway he wasn't frightened off and was happy to talk - the other man was his bro-in-law and seemed to have limited English. Over about 45 minutes we talked about shunning, blood transfusions, failed end-times prophecy, obedience to the GB, increased demands for money and other things. He wanted to discuss creation but his best argument was "there are still monkeys in the zoo" so I decided it would have been an unfair fight.
I tried to appeal constantly to his authentic personality and common sense. I hope I showed him that I am not an angry, raving madman but a calm, intelligent, thoughtful man who no can longer believe impossible things. I left him with the advice to check out JWFacts.com and we shook hands and left on good terms.
I am off out for a meal but will post up some more details of our conversation later.