am i too thin-skinned or does anyone find that annual km insert dealing with the district assembly offensive???.
i mean, having to read and comment on those same things every year about not cooking in your hotel room, not to steal food if breakfast is offered, not to poop in the sinks, or whatever they say.
if you have to give those "reminders," it makes you wonder about the people you are sitting next to during the sessions.. *****rub a dub
With all the do's and don'ts constantly being shoved down our throats and the constant reminders by elders to anybody who didn't follow, it always seemed outrageous that some of these reminders had to spelled out so blatantly. Who were these people? I always wondered how you could be a JW and still do those things.
Not that those things didn't happen, but it seemed like any loyal JW should have known better. I was shocked that a lot of things listed were actually happening.
i was lead to beleive that cleanlinness was next to godliness,that jehovah is a clean god, .
as we as a family sat down behind ( being the operative word ) a couple of elderly sisters ,arriving late we took the only seats available,even then we caused disruption as we even i were fighting over the seats as to where one would sit ,sure enough i allways seemed to end up in the firing line of these elderly fat arsed sisters,whom allways ended up farting in your face,the smell was so strong that you could actualy taste the stench it in the air 10 minutes later,i allways felt sick ,my children grinning .
how did you cope yourself
I seem to remember some of the people in the audience suffering my bombs more than once. Some of the funniest were when I was doing microphone duty. Because of the length of the aisles, you'd have to make your way into the aisle and then stretch with the microphone pole to reach the people in the middle. So your ass is right behind the heads of the people in the next row and you're standing right in front of some other people. And then, while stretching and bending over with the microphone pole, sometimes nature would call. Man, how embarassing when a noisy one would slip by. What were the people thinking when they hear a fart right behind their heads?
Or the SBD (silent but deadly) ones. You're trying to keep a straight face and hold this microphone right at someones mouth while trying not to laugh as the people you're standing in front of start catching a whiff and are starting to react and give you dirty looks. Luckily, as soon as the comment was over, I could leave the situation, leaving the poor folks in their seats to suffer.
ok the weirdest thing just happened to my coworker and i. we went to go pickup our breakfast from accross the street.
when we got back to our building we walked over to the elevators and as we turned the corner we saw someone get into the elevator before it closed.
we didnt see the person exactly but we saw their leg or whatever passthrough before the door closed.
Had almost exactly the same experience a few weeks ago. It was at the garage elevators at work. I saw a guy walk into the elevator and the elevator doors close. I must have been about 20 yards away. In fact, I was close enough that I thought he might hold the elevator and wait for me. But, the doors closed. By the time I got there and pressed the up button, the same elevator opened and it was empty.
It didn't seem to take that long for me to walk to the button and these elevators are SLOW. It takes forever for them to decide to close the doors after you've gotten in and when travelling down, it seems to take over 5 seconds from the time it stops until the doors open. It *could have* gone up and back down, but the timing would have had to have been the fastest I ever saw that elevator go.
I'm assuming nothing else obvious, like a back and front door on the elevator (person walking out the other one). Or person escaping through the trap-door in the ceiling.
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obviously the williams sisters who are so prominent in the tennis at the moment, michael jackson is he or isn't he, i heard prince or whatever he calls himself now was studying.
kwiji.
I think everyone's mentioned the ones I can think of.
I've heard from JW friends in the Minneapolis area that Morris Day (of the Time, songs Jungle Love and the Bird) was a JW, or at least his mother was and he'd been seen at assemblies. I've also heard he's Prince's cousin. If that's true, the JWs in the family may explain why Prince converted.
I also remember a Watchtower or Awake article about some pro basketball player in the NBA who quit the game to get more involved as a JW - don't know his name though. I think the article was from the mid-late 80's.
Randy White (I think that was his name) was a guitarist for the Skunks and was in our congregation. He eventually dropped out though. The Skunks were a sorta-famous band in the 60's and were one of two bands who recorded Elvira right after it was written and a long time before the Oak Ridge Boys made it famous.
i think someone on this forum is a rat....or troll as i think they are called.. i am sitting at home last night watching fear factor, and there was a knock at the door.. i opened it to find two elders from my old hall.
they did not seem very sincere when they apologized for disturbing me without notice.. they said the purpose of there visit was to just to check up on me, find out if my circumstances or opinions had changed.
we ended up in a huge conversation about my "inactivity", they wanted to know if there was anything keeping or holding me back from the truth, and wanted to know if there was anything i needed to get of my chest, cause guilt has away of keeping people back.
I wonder. Can any JW come here to spy and not be affected in the long run? Won't the thoughts and sentiments eventually rub off?
I know some are very stubborn, but if you read the experiences and such here, I would think a lot of them would eventually have to realize something's wrong with the WTBTS.
As for identity, I worry. I try to keep concealed, but I have also said enough on this forum that people who knew me could identify me. My main concern is being DF/DA and losing family. But, if confronted, this is a big world and I don't believe that my experiences are so unique. What I'm saying is, I think I could deny that 'jws' is me. That those identifying tidbits I've left here could be from anybody. Prove it's me.
i remember baking in the hot sun, with the outdoor district conventions.
the only thing i liked about them was lunch time.
back in the day, then i could grab the little coupons, ten to a page, each worth 10 cents.
One of my best memories was back when we used to have them at County Stadium in Milwaukee. The field itself had no seating, just the platform, so the public wasn't allowed down there. But, my dad was on the construction team for the platform. That allowed my brother and I to tag along and get out onto the field. Got to run the bases where greats like Hank Aaron used to play.
In my later teens, crusing the hallways looking for girls was fun. Cause if I was going to marry a JW, I didn't especially like the slim pickings at my hall. This was the only place to find a little more variety.
After 18 and having our own transportation, skipping out altogether was even better. I remember my brother and I having a great afternoon chilling-out at one of the lakes in Madison (Mendota or Mendosa?), splitting a 6-pack. Had to be careful though. Sometimes you'd meet some "spiritual" cutie who would ask you about things in the program so you had to be quick on your feet.
I think we always enjoyed the whole trip. Our family didn't travel much and when we did, we didn't stay in hotels, we camped. Staying in a hotel in a different city was fun. We also looked forward to the night. Going to hang out or do things with our friends or swim at the hotel, or in later years, go visit the girls we had met that day.
As for the sessions? Boring. The whole religion was boring. Same stuff, over and over. I liked the costumed dramas though - at least it was a break from a boring speaker. When I was a kid, I tried to draw to pass the time, but my parents wouldn't let me. Tried to sleep, but they'd wake me. I became a first-class daydreamer - even my grade-school report cards commented on it - being JW was where I think it all started. When I was older, we'd sit on our own and get away with diversions like drawing and napping. Or bring binoculars to "see the speaker/drama", but really we'd people-watch.
Overall, I didn't really mind conventions and probably even looked forward to them. But those feelilngs had nothing to do with the sessions - only with the rest of the trip.
it's been a number of years since i've been to a district convention.
do they still have the preferred hotels list they distribute in january?
i remember how some would purposely leave the hall early that night so they could get home and call in their reservations before everyone else.
YellowLab, I remember the Sheraton in Madison, right across the street. Stopped in to visit people there, but never stayed there. I think it was both pricey and always filled up fast. Since you could predict your assembly weekend from year to year, you could practically make your reservations as far out as they would let you. I seem to remember the Sheraton being very picky about non-guests being there. In particular, I remember one thing to do at night was to go visit your friends who had a pool at their hotel and go swimming. I think we did that once at the Sheraton, but they kicked us out for not having proof we were staying there.
I remember staying at various places on the east side of Madison near some mall. Quite frankly, I don't remember paying too much attention to the official hotel lists. At one point, I think we just started calling and found out who had the best rates. We'd toss out the JW thing to see if they had a deal (some hotels that weren't on the official list did offer deals) or we'd ask about corporate discount rates or AAA rates. I know quite a few times we didn't stay at official hotels because most of them were booked.
I remember my brother and I staying near the campus area once, knowing how cool Madison and State St. can be. But alas, things weren't very lively with college out-of-session.
cruzanheart, was that the tornado from a just few years ago? Like 3-5 years ago? That's fairly recent. Sort of assumed you may have been out of the org for longer than that.
i find myself whistling several when working and when i catch up with what's going on i stop.
anybody else?
I wouldn't say "stuck in my head". It's more like, what can I even remember?
I was a JW for 23 years from birth and now another 13 years apart from them. I remember something about "let's watch how we walk and watch how we talk" and another one about "from house to house, from door to door". Actually, these 2 sum up JW life pretty well. Watch your step and go door-knocking.
The only other one I remember is the Lord's Evening Meal one. Something about "this most sacred night". And that's probably because I honored my father's request to come to Memorial a few times since leaving.
When I was a kid I used to like the more up-tempo ones and ones with a chorus. After the new songbook, they added a bunch of stuff that was even harder to sing and plodded along. A lot of the new songs, as I recall, had no repeating chorus.
ok folks here is my plan to reduce the amount of gun violence in the u.s. im sorry but i cannot help out the european countries becuase a) i dont live in europe and b) only naughty people have guns in europe.. ok. i have come to the conclusion that drugs in the u.s. need to be not only de-criminalized but legalized so that they can be taxed.
by legalizing drugs the profit gained by selling them will plummet and it will not be cost effective for gang members and cartels to import/deal drugs in the u.s. and the violence surrounding drugs will vanish as there will be no motive (ie $$$$$) to commit such violence.. ok. now the problems.
1) no one likes to admit they are wrong (especially the govt.).
And this whole "they'll just find another crime to commit"- BULLSHIT. People sell drugs becuase they are lazy and STUPID. It makes alot of $$$$$$$$$$$. Other types of illegal activity are not as profitable and take BRAINS to pull off. And the real kicker is- They are all ready doing it. How can you sit here and say "Drugs are bad, I hate drugs, but dont legalize them because I dont want some ex-dealer to steal my car....."
I'm with you on the fact that the only person being hurt by drug use is the person using them (just like cigarettes, alcohol, or any other unhealthy product). And I'm not against legalizing them.
But I do think that a lot of the drug trade is from gangs and organized crime. People get into gangs and crime for several reasons and not because drug sales are a lazy way to make money. If you take away one product, there are others. The gang still exists. It is not going to turn into a social club and it is not going to disband to go find real jobs. The question becomes what takes the place of the lost income? Gang layoffs? Membership cuts?
Other criminal activity will no doubt take the place of the drug trade. What will that be? Gambling? Prostitution? Theft? Could be any of those. Can some of those crimes be violent? Certainly. In my opinion, it takes a lot less brains to rob somebody at gunpoint than to set up and run a laboratory for manufacturing street drugs.
And, because the gangs still exist, they will still fight over turf and other things that cut into their pocketbooks. The issue of violence is still money and taking away a source of income does not make that need for money disappear. I happen to think the gun violence will continue with or without legalized drugs.
forgive me if this has been covered before and please redirect me to the topic.... i was looking over the km scan for january 2003 at http://jsefton.users1.50megs.com/kmscans.htm and noticed this on page 4:an approach that has proved to be effective with busy people is to conduct a brief bible study right on their doorstep.
when you are preparing to make a return visit, select from the january 2002 our kingdom ministry insert a presentation that fits the householder.
many of the presentations in this insert are designed to lead directly into a discussion of the require brochure or the knowledge book.
Guess I'm not questioning the counting of time with inactive ones or kids. The thing here is it seems you can make a return visit, cover a paragraph from your book and read a few scriptures and bang! You can call it a Bible Study.
Back when I was a JW, a Bible Study was a rare thing. But return visits, reading scriptures and talking about literature was quite common.
Now it seems like if you play it right, all of your return visits could count as Bible Studies.
