Welcome! I know a few ex Mormons, including my daughter-in-law. While the beliefs are different, the culture is very similar. We also used to think the Mormons were weird and couldn't understand how they could believe such far fetched things, lol.
We also were taught that Satan was always trying to deceive us, so we should not trust anything but the organization. Family life was pretty similar, life revolved around meetings and field service. They now have two meetings a week, about two hours each, usually one on Sunday and another on a weeknight, but there used to another one hour meeting in small groups in people's homes. Saturday morning was usually field service. Families were encouraged to study together one night a week. All were required to do field service, at least ten hours were expected to be spent in door to door work a month.
It's like any small closed group of people anywhere, some nice, some not so nice, a few nutters and some real jerks. Meetings are pretty boring, rote question and answer sessions where the answer is given, content of talks (sermons) are from outlines provided by the governing body or leadership. Unity and obedience is strictly enforced. There is little tolerance for individuality or independent thought.
Mormons believe in "milk before meat," which means they will not tell you certain things about their beliefs until after you have progressed another circle in towards the most inner circle.
JWs study for at least six months with interested individuals before baptism. They also don't tell them certain things until they have been properly prepared, as in mind control, some things you don't find out until after you are baptized. They practice disfellowshipping, or shunning, people can be shunned for just about anything that three elders agree on, but they are especially alhard on apostacy or disobedience to authority. It's a very rigid heirarchy. Three elders meet with a person, if they agree they are disfellowshipped, an announcement is made and you will lose all your family and friends overnight, they are not told the reason and you will have no recourse. Shunning is pretty strictly enforced, more so than the Mormons, from what I understand.
As in any religion, it's not all bad, I had many friends that I miss now. There are some biblical principles they teach that are good, honesty, integrity, morality, etc, but you can get that from any religion.
All in all I regret wasting thirty years of my life in this. They constantly make you feel guilty for not doing enough, they discourage higher education (at least Mormons don't do that), I made so many bad decisions. But like any cult, they have you convinced they, and only they have the path to salvation.
If you haven't read this yet I recommend the book Mistakes were made (but not by me), why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisionand and hurtful acts. It explains cognitive dissonance, and why people reject facts when it conflicts with a cherished belief system.
