i remember growing up a jw and always being told that someday the goverment would turn on us and throw us in prison.. i was watching a documentary on national geographic about san quinton prison and it brought back old memories of those fears.. i remember thinking how scared i would be if i had to go to prison and what i could do to protect myself.
i would think of how i could just stay in my cell all the time so no one could hurt me.
especially after seeing stories on the news about riots and rapes and people getting stabbed.. leave it to the jw's to make a kid worry about going to prison.
As a child I was convinced we would all end up in a concentration camp in the middle of Australia being tortured, forced to sit in the blazing sun without food or water.
As it turned out, when I did go to the "middle of Australia" - camping at Ayers Rock, it was freezing cold! There was plenty of food and water ...and... I certainly wasn't tortured!!
wonderful words from the co at the assembly.
not only are we in the last days, we are in the "last days of the last days", and that the fall of religion and the start of the great tribulation is so close.
hah, even went so far as to say "possibly within a year".
Blondie that was a very interesting post. Thanks!
penny
we could all say every bit of our experience in the wt was the worst.
i hated field service - i used to call it the agony hour.
i'd like to know how many people hated field service as much as i did!
Hi misspeaches. Read your link - the amazing thing about this board (and why we need it so much) is we know where you're coming from and why you felt the way you did. Good to be in kinder pastures.
Field service - I never thought that was too bad. I took great pride in not upsetting people so had lots of success with placing magazines. One of the hardest aspects of fading was letting my return visits go - I'd hear at the meeting how they were missing me and when was I going to call again. None of them ever came to any meetings - thankfully - that would have been an embarrassment! Eventually I got sick of FS though - there was never anyone home and it seemed such a waste of effort. I also saw how nervous some of the kids got when they thought they might meet someone from school. It seemed so awful to put them through that.
My worst Watchtower moment? Being the subject of a JC meeting and having to admit in detail what I did to a group of straightlaced, old men. The guilt afterwards. The pain of being such a disappointment to my parents. The embarrassment of the whole congregation hearing in a talk what I did (no names mentioned but you imagine everyone knows it was you). Losing my best friend because I was "bad association."
It was a long time ago and I did recover. But I feel for those young kids who might have to go through that now.
penny
i was having a good conversation with my mum, and then............... id said too much.. she had been telling me she didnt ant to go to the hall, for a number of reasons, and when i started critisizing the borg she went all haughty and started telling me i should be going!!!!!!!!!.
the usual, its so near the end, its the only truth............blah blah.
its 3.30am here and i cant sleep, i just want everyone to know i dont go anymore but i cant.
Vitty, know how you feel! I ended up telling my family that I wasn't going to go to any more meetings (that was after I'd missed lots over several years). They were upset but don't shun me and I avoid discussing issues (there's no point - they're not going to change their minds because of something I might say). Most families don't like shunning so don't want to know about viewpoints or things you're doing that might lead to it (unlike some elders who just love to disfellowship).
in my latest post in my story, i recounted how my dad and another elder made attendance at high school sports events a no-no.
in retrospect, i don't recall anything in print that made attendance at local sporting events a shepherding offense.
maybe my memory is faulty.. did your boe make rules like this?.
Here downunder there was a DC where they said no ice-skating. The one time that I went, I thought it was the most innocent entertainment possible.
i was just wondering how many of you might have joined the organization to placate family members .
i can say as a teen i was baptized for the sole purpose of quieting my father .
how about you did you do it for the fear of losing family members
No I got baptized willingly - no pressure from anyone. I believed it fully and was totally dedicated. At 15.
ok here's the deal.
every since amanda moved out i have been surviving on one income, and lately i have been strapped for cash.
my bills are behind, my credit cards are behind, needless to say im broke.
Don't cash the cheque and please don't quit your job. Ask for a payrise, overtime, sell some furniture you don't need, live somewhere cheaper, move in with someone else temporarily.
But don't cash the cheque.
jw memorial is coming up, i told myself i'm not going this year, having a mother a couple brothers and two sisters still "in" all pressuring me to attend, saying things like "this may be the last memorial b4 the end", you've heard the spiel before.....crap like that is putting a lot a pressure on me this year, wish they would just stop it and worry about their own crappy lives!
A lot of posters will be in the same boat. The first year you don't go is the most difficult. If you decide not to go, just tell them straight - it makes it easier in the long run.
penny
what i mean is now that you are out of the wt; do you ever think back at something you innocently said or did when you still believed or you were little that now feels like a sign that you would someday get out of the bullsh*t?
for me, growing up in the jw's, i feel there were signs of my "goat hairs" even way back then.
** even as a child, every saturday morning i would spend at least 10 or 15 minutes trying to figure out what to say to get out of going to field service .
At 15 - bucking the trend and deciding to go back to school for another year. That was not thought of very highly in the congregation.
i picked this up over several different recent threads.
the annointed...they all die = change of light of some kind.
eventually there can't be anymore annointed.
But the new "anointed" keep getting younger. It can go on for a while yet! Before long no-one will remember that the number was supposed to be finalised by 1935.
