Posts by Flowerpetal

My mother was married to an Iraqi.
He beat her senseless for no reason. No reason. Do you understand? No reason.
He liked beating women. That is how he was raised....IN IRAQ. Fine muslim values he learned.....

I was in a chatroom on AOL several years ago and there was this Muslim guy in there that corroborates this story. He said women should be beaten at least once a day if not more. And he said he beats his wife daily.

Teeny I think I would have done the same thing you thought of...

36

Did You Feel Pressured To Auxiliary or Regular Pioneer?

by minimus in

jw
friends

a few times a year, the society really promotes pioneering.they will devote service meeting talks and parts stressing the need to regular or auxiliary pioneer.

at the assemblies and at the district convention, they will try to shame you into pioneering.

they give examples of 85 year old parapalegics that "made room in their lives" to pioneer.

Flowerpetal

I was raised in the "truth" but worked for a while before I regular pioneered. I didn't do it till I was 19 and only for a year. I wanted to see what it was like, plus my mom's friend knew of a young sister (she was about 4 yrs older than me) who wanted a change from the city she lived in, and wanted to pioneer. So I thought this was the perfect opportunity. She even lived with my family and I. Well, as time went on, it turned out that we had different interests. Eventually I wanted to get married; she wanted to stay single and either continue to pioneer or travel (one of her goals was to see the entire world before she was 25). I don't quite think she did it by 25, but when I met her she had been to a lot of countries. Anyway, for that reason, and others I won't go into at this time, we stopped being partners and she went back to her town, and I got off the reg. pioneer list.

During my high school years I would auxilliary pioneer with a couple of friends during summer school vacation. Back then even aux. pioneers had to get in 100 hrs. and place 100 mags. That was hard to place the mags. and it was a struggle to get the 100 hours in too esp. when you're a teen.

Anyway, every once in a while after that, I would aux. pioneer. In fact, I was aux. pioneering the year a convention came to my city for the very first time, and they needed volunteers to work at "convention headquarters" which was a large KH built by wealthy JWs. This was waaaaayyyyy before quick-builds. I met my husband there.

The last time I aux. pioneered was maybe 8 or 10 yrs ago. I worked with the reg. pioneers in my cong. and there were quite a few of them. One was pretty organized as far as territory was concerned, but the rest, especially this one sister, was sooo disorganized. All her literature was in the trunk of her car and she never looked at what she needed for the day until we were all ready to leave the KH for service. And they all had to congregate around her car to shoot the breeze for 10 minutes, and I would get tired of waiting. So the "joy" I was supposed to have in the "preaching work" was taken from me by the pioneers.

Then a few years ago, the society started the Pioneers Assist Others Program. I was asked by the elders if I wanted to participate--which at the time I thought was redundant, because I was still working with the pioneers a few days during the week anyway. But it seemed nobody volunteered to work with them except one other sister. I told them I wasn't interested. I just felt I couldn't get any more involved with these pioneers than I was already or else I would scream. It's funny too that out of all those years, only one pioneer seems to be successful in getting someone interested enough to come to the meetings. And that started probably last year. But I'm not too sure if the lady will become a JW or not. Time will tell....

Sorry for this being so long, but Min asked.....

31

Finally sharing my story!

by morty in

jw
friends

for those who have not met me my name is michelle.

(aka.mortons68)thank-you walter for the post earlyer last week for welcoming me.i have been wanting to do a post to introduce myself,but have not had the guts to tell my story.for one,i am very new to the computer , two, i was not sure about opening my life to complete strangers,and three ,my spelling and grammer is not that great at all.

vicki,thanks for leading me to this site.

Flowerpetal

Welcome Michelle and thanks for sharing! I agree with you that life is a journey as I am discovering, and you never know who is going to cross your path, as I have also discovered. It's great when it's someone you knew i childhood.

I'm glad you and Vicki met up again and you will be a good support for her.

Flowerpetal

30

Welcome sns

by simplesally in

jw
friends

well, my friends, i have a friend who has just joined us.

sns made her first post.

i will let her choose what she wants to tell in her own time.

Flowerpetal

Welcome sns and I hope you tell us what the letters mean!

13

"Outstanding" response to conventions?

by expatbrit in

jw
friends

from wt media:

outstanding national response to "give god glory" conventions.

united states?jehovah's witnesses have successfully completed their series of "give god glory" district conventions for 2003 in the 48 contiguous states.

Flowerpetal

LOL, Shotgun!

7

Latest JW statistics.....

by ScoobySnax in

jw
friends

no i haven't got them!

but ain't they due out about now??

?

Flowerpetal

Look for the Jan. 1st or 15th Watchtower magazine--they will be in one of those two issues.

56

Your reason for remaining anonymous on the boards?

by starfish422 in

jw
friends

just wondering why you choose not to use too many identifying facts about yourself on the boards?

is it to protect yourself, or others?.

for me, i have nothing to lose where the dubs are concerned, and initially my profile was pretty extensive.

Flowerpetal

I am still in and am attempting a slow fade, and existing in the congregation slightly under the radar. Since I have doctrinal disagreement with the org. I think my fading will work. My main relationship is with God, so I can bide my time.

Nonethless, it really is hard to tell if there are people from my area lurking here, so I don't give out too much info. either. I am known by some in at least 4 congregations so it's hard to tell.

39

does anyone remember being a child as a JW and not having holiday?

by franklin J in

jw
friends

i am curious to know how many others shared the same experiences as me as a child, growing up as a jw.. surfing this board has brought back a flood of memories ( i am secure enough to deal with them) not all good.

i have been away from jws for sometime, and remember being a child in school and having to explain why i do not salute the flag, why i have to leave the room when there is a birthday or christmas party, why i had to explain when i was seen going door to door ( i grew up to be a pioneer).

being "different" is hard for a child.. now that i have 3 children of my own, who are fortunatelly not growing up as jw, to see how secure and well adjusted they are in school is comforting.

Flowerpetal

I forgot to mention the holidays while in grammar school. Well being the only child, I guess I was a little spoiled--so one year I wanted to be in the Christmas pageant and I cried and carried on, and my mom allowed it, even though she was a witness. Maybe my "unbelieving" dad had a part in talking her into it--but I was an angel. But that was 3rd grade....and I think that was the year I had a make-shift costume for Halloween during school hours. But later on, I stopped insisting on practicing these holidays and my mom would come to the school to explain to the teacher as to why.

Being with my classmates, which a lot were Catholic, we would have discussions on what we were
"allowed" to do and not "allowed" to do, and since they used the word "allowed" first, and would say something was against their religion, then I would use the same words and explain to them what I was and wasn't allowed to do because of my religion. They didn't seem to have a problem with that as it was understood that religions "allow" and "disallow" certain things. Again, I believe it was the times I grew up in. I guess there was more control on society, in general.

39

does anyone remember being a child as a JW and not having holiday?

by franklin J in

jw
friends

i am curious to know how many others shared the same experiences as me as a child, growing up as a jw.. surfing this board has brought back a flood of memories ( i am secure enough to deal with them) not all good.

i have been away from jws for sometime, and remember being a child in school and having to explain why i do not salute the flag, why i have to leave the room when there is a birthday or christmas party, why i had to explain when i was seen going door to door ( i grew up to be a pioneer).

being "different" is hard for a child.. now that i have 3 children of my own, who are fortunatelly not growing up as jw, to see how secure and well adjusted they are in school is comforting.

Flowerpetal

I'm sorry that some of you didn't get any intervention by your parents. In high school, in the '60's, when I was a freshman, and because so many witnesses had attended that school in the past, our principal made an announcement at the first assembly, that any who are JWs should wait outside of the auditorium until the flag salute and the National Anthem was finished. The next year the asst. principal became our new principal, and the guidance couselor became the AP. She was unfamiliar with witnesses staying outside the auditorium until the ceremonies were over...so she had a meeting with us telling us that we need something written down on "church" stationery by our "minister" as to why we refused to do these things. I guess she thought we were being rebellious. So when I got hom, told my mom, called our PO and told him what the AP wanted, he said they didn't do things like that and that my mom would have to go down and explain things to the AP. All the other JW mothers did the same thing...and you know the AP was as sweet as pie with them, but treated us like trash.

In elementary school, (the '50's) we had a very strict principal. She demanded that all the school learn the 23 Psalm, the Preamble to the Constitution, Psalm 100. and a lengthy part of the Declaration of Independence which had to be recited at each assembly. I saw no problem with conforming to her request, as the scriptures were from the Bible so I dutifully memorized them, as well as the Preamble, and other things. And in class (7th and 8th grade) we were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. All those things were no biggy to me....Maybe it was the times I grew up in. <shrug>

I was never told I was a servant of Jehovah as a kid by my mom, although she would always express hope that I would be one some day...