A little background on me. I have never been a JW or had any desire to be one. I definitely have no desire to join.
I recently visited and had a tour of Watchtower Farm and Patterson. I was the guest of a long-time acquaintance who is a JW. This individual was visiting from out of state (I'm in NY) and asked me to drive him to these places and to accompany him on a tour. This was not an appealing idea to me, but I did it as a favor.
Prior to my tours I never gave much thought to what this organization stood for and preached. I'm not a very religious person.
While on the tours I was very uncomfortable. Everyone was pleasant and the facilities were spotless, but I felt as if I was surrounded by regimented zombies. I was told how everyone volunteering to work at these sites was expected to dress and be groomed in a certain manner, as well as other expectations. If they did not meet these standards they were "talked to" about there shortcomings.
The regimented zombie-like atmosphere was demonstrated to the extreme when I joined the "family" for lunch in the huge dining room. We were told where to sit and how to pass food around the table in only one direction. But the thing that really got me was the TV screens that were hanging throughout the room. Each screen had only a digital clock displayed on it. At exactly 12:15 everyone had to be in their seat and at that time the lunch ritual began, no one ate or did anything until 12:15. I was told that all of the JW facilities followed this, with each lunch starting at 12:15, and all diners in these facilities being served the exact same meal.
While, as mentioned earlier, I hadn't given much thought to the JW beliefs prior to my visit, I came away from the tours with the feeling that this was some sort of cult. When I returned home I decided to search the internet to see if others had similar feelings, or if I just interpreted things wrong because I was ignorant to the JW religion. When I searched "Jehovah's Witness+cult" I was amazed at the number of sites that were returned. That is how I found this site.
After that long drawn out introduction, let me get to my question.
While on the tour of the printing factory (Watchtower Farm) and school (Patterson) I could not understand what the attraction was for JW's to travel great distances to view a few buildings. All you see are buildings, rooms and machines, and are told of the lifestyles of the volunteers. Others on the tour took pictures of paintings on the walls, the outside of buildings, some of the printing machines and people that randomly introduced themselves. Some spoke of how they have made many visits there, and others of how one of their greatest wishes in life was to someday work there.
I can somewhat understand how a JW might be curious about these places and maybe visit once. But as current and/or former JW's, can you explain why JW's would want to visit more than once, and be so overwhelmed by the experience that you would take pictures of paintings (that I understand have been printed in the Watchtower), empty rooms and the outside of simple buildings?