Well, I lef the JWs, not because of the behaviou of other, but because I couldn´t support the doctrine anymore and I couldn´t live a lie any longer. I met "the truth" when I was 17 and I got baptized when I was 19, and I don´t want to boast myself but I tried to behave as a perfect witness. That doesn´t mean that I was arrogant or that I showed contempt for other people; I just wanted to do what I thought God wanted me to do. I remember that I was the preferred ministerial servant to the old ladies in the KH because I always paid attention to them.
I think I was very lucky to be in the congregation I stayed all these years. In my town there are 5 congregations and I realised that other witnesses despised my congregation´s elders because they were not very good at teaching or giving talls. That´s why al the assemblies it wasn´t very common to see the elders participating there. But I remember that they were kind with the people in the KH. You could listen to gossips from other congregations where there were problems among elders, but mine was not very problemati (there were problems, but never as scandalous as the things hapening in the other congregations). That´s why I can´t say that I left because of the people.
I always had doubts about some subjects but eveytime these doubts appeared I put them in the back of my mind. Doubts like the blood issue, the 144,000 (if these people were going to heaven, why not me?), the inmortal soul (if I don´t have an inmortal soul and nothing remains after my death, who will be the man that will be resurrected? A man similar to me, behaving like me, but not me? A clon?), the destruction of all mankind in Armagedon, but the JWs, etc.
There came a moment that I couldn´t stand anymore.I had all my friends there, all my life had been build up around the Watchtower but I had to be honest to myself and to do what I had to do. I don´t remember exactly when was that moment but I know that at first I only wanted to be removed from ministerial servant (I made that decission in September 2000), but I waited to speak to the elders until some arrangements at the congregation were done. I spoke to the elders in January 2001 and asked them that I didn´t want to be a MS but at that moment I had the idea in my mind of fading. I can´t say which date, between Sepembeer and January, was exactly the date that I took the decission of not being a JW anymore.
In May 2001 I stopped attending meetings and, when I received the telephne calls from the elders, I said that I didn´t want to go there anymore. I wasn´t sure if that was just a crisis of faith and I would recover it in some months´time. That´s why I din´t write any letter of disassociation. I wanted to be very sure before doing that, because I knew the consequences of that. During one year I could do what I had always wanted to do: study. For the first time in all these years I could read books or other information without feeling guilty because I should be reading "theocratic literature". I read Franz´s book "Crisis de conciencia" (does it sound familiar?) and I confirmed to myself what I believed: JWs don´´t have the truth.
In August 2002 I did what I thought was the best: writing my disassociation letter. I wanted to turn the page and live my life leaving Jws behind. I had no familiy there, that´s because I didn´t mind being cut from JWs. I had friends there, but it was good to know that they were not real friends, just conditional friends.And that´s my story, with few friends now but with great plans to accomplish.
