Nice post Meta.
The post-Christian society in Australia is much less interested in any drawn out discussion of religious semantics, especially JW anachronisms. The general man in the street knows dubs only by the "nutty" dogmas ie. blood and door-to-door preaching.
That leaves the ministry a pretty boring activity - even more so than it was - and there are far less coffee shops in Australia to boot! The ministry is left as 99% not-at-home or overt anti-interests, and 1% fundies of some other persausion debating their favourite angle with no risk of change on either side.
The meetings get duller as every day goes by, the content either mindlessly dumbed down YMCA (Yesterday's meat cooked again) or rantings about JW practice and adherence or lack thereof.
I have a good story from the field service (theirs not mine) on Saturday afternoon. I was riding my bike down a main road and could see two book-bagged dubs loitering about 300 yards further down the road. I was thinking if I would try the "can I join you in the ministry" line someone suggested here the other day when I noticed in the bus-stop two A's - one either end of the seat! (wonder how they got there? - LOL) At least one was April 8 and one April 22 (this year!).
I got off my bike - went back and collected them and rode down to the loiterers. I handed them to the two older brothers and said "I think you must have dropped these in the bus stop - I'm sure you don't want to lose them" and just got back on my bike.
Cheers,
Andrew of the "helping take the boredom out of it" class.