My method depends on the person. My parents are JW's, my sister bowed to the pressure and was baptized, and has regretted it, and them, and loathes any religion since. She's successfully faded and is married to a Catholic. She's a treat. No sugar coating and honest open talk. We discussed the hearings daily.
My dad is dead, and mother is a JW in name only. She doesn't attend but perches next to her speaker call in meeting thing on the phone. I asked her if her Witness friends had been out to bring her magazines and if something was going on because I'd heard some really disturbing things. Gossip isn't something she can pass up, regardless of who or what it's about. I told her and asked her if my elderly aunt had heard about it. She said she doubted it but she wasn't about to ask because she'd report her for apostasy.
Next call to the aunt. Of two elderly aunts, one died, A devout JW who never married, never had children, and stayed single because back in the day, that's what the leaders recommended. She died alone, at home, waiting for 4-6 months for someone to drop off her Watchtower and Awake magazine. In her words to my mom, she said, "I always gave them 20.00 when they brought them, but the last time I hadn't been to the bank so I didn't give them anything. I hope that's not the reason they aren't coming."
So, I called my remaining, devout, pious, totally mind controlled JW aunt who wouldn't think twice about reporting her sister for apostasy. Thankfully, she lives several states away.
She needed more gentle handling. HA. I asked her what in the world was going on in the organization and is she doing ok. She was shocked and wondered why I asked. I asked her if they'd been preaching about persecution or the end being near. She thought and said they had mentioned some things, but why was I asking. I said, "do you think it could be starting? Persecution I mean?" She said, "well, I wouldn't doubt it. Now that I think about it, they had a little talk about it on the jw.org site. What is going on? Do you know anything?" I said, no, not really, but was just concerned. As long as she's ok, I don' want to worry her.
After a bit she was getting a little testy not getting the information she was after, so I told her I was concerned about the horrible things being said about all those poor little kids being molested. That it was mind boggling that any religion could have so many and no one charged or prosecuted and it allegedly went on for years, so I went to the website and am still having trouble figuring things out and getting around the site, but they have all these documents online and there was some Flock book and something about the subscriptions to the magazines and all kinds of things but after I saw that about they really do have subscriptions but they want people to deliver the magazines so they can get a donation and after poor dear, Aunt XXXX waiting for her magazines until she died and suspecting they weren't bringing them because she didn't pay them last time, kind of made me feel sick.There. Like Ralphie in the Christmas story, I blurted it out.
She said, "you don't mean?" Which is southern speak for tell me this isn't true. Are you serious? I told her yup. It was awful. She said, "that flock book you mentioned, it wasn't "Shepherd the Flock..." I said, "YES, that's it, thank you." She said. No. They didn't have that on there did they? I said, yes, with a lot of other things, but after reading about the way to get a subscription and thinking about poor Aunt XXXX I didn't sort through the rest of them.She asked about it but I told her it upset me too much to even relay it and if it's something confidential, it's best we don't discuss it anyway....even though it's not right what they did. (Confidential or not, she'll be looking)
Told her on the way out of the website, I saw a thing where that governing body man that seems nice was going in there Fri. 11 am and it's going broadcast live, so if I'm not too busy, I'll watch it because I'm sure he'll tell them to leave you guys alone and will also make them get those confidential things off there. But it hurts me for Aunt XXXX to know she could have had her magazines come by subscription and wouldn't have missed them the during the last months of her life. But in case I miss it, if she watches, make sure and let me know what he says. I've forgotten so much but remember how they used to say something about we shouldn't fear man and if brought before officials, Jehovah would let them know what to speak, so I bet it will be the Witness of all time.
She started with the, "but I think they'd have said something, and we don't usually go to places like that...." I said, "oh, no need to explain. I just figured you were allowed to see your governing body but no, it doesn't matter. If I miss it, it doesn't matter at all. She said, that's true. She didn't know why they didn't say anything but there surely couldn't be anything wrong with it. So she's going to try to catch it. heh.
(Thanks to all the earlier posts and threads that were able to offer so many ideas)
