Hey Penny2!
Aussie has been having some great weather these last few days! We've spent the holidays tripping around all over the place. As I type this, I'm sitting on the back deck sipping a nice glass of white wine watching the sun go down.
We had a great afternoon with Sister T. Boy she is so close to 'getting' it about the truth about the truth. She completely agrees that there is something wrong with the organisation. She clearly sees from her experience and the experience of others that there is a serious lack of love and, in her own words "legalism is taking precedent." We told her about the experience that was shared in a thread here on JWN about about a video at the elders school where two elders convinced the older elder, on the judicial committee that a young dude should be disfellowshipped and all they used to convince hime was the Shepherd book, and the bible was not used at all. We of course said our elder friend from another congregation related it, not that we read it on here! She was flabbergasted and said "If this is the training they're getting, then we're all stuffed."
She is still hanging onto the "despite all this, its still the best place to be" mentality, but I guess the cult runs deep and blinds easily. Like an abused wife wanting to see the good in her husband. We did manage on a few occasions stop her in her verbal tracks, and you could see the gears grinding. For example she said "Yes these things have happened to me and others, but you can't get around the fact that the scriptures say