i created a new account since i didn't want anybody to be able to trace this back to me based on my other posts.
i was an international delegate at the special convention in helsinki.
i am an awake pioneer.
@sir82 yes there was a space and time dedicated to handing out trinkets and candies to one another. Most witnesses now have business cards that contain their email and social media information. These were handed out with abandon.
@BlackWolf Finland is a very nice country. Bit expensive though.
@Heartsafire there were about 260 baptized if I remember correctly. The total attendance for Finland was in the mid 30,000 range.
i created a new account since i didn't want anybody to be able to trace this back to me based on my other posts.
i was an international delegate at the special convention in helsinki.
i am an awake pioneer.
I created a new account since I didn't want anybody to be able to trace this back to me based on my other posts. I was an international delegate at the special convention in Helsinki. I am an awake pioneer. I wanted to share some thoughts, positive and negative, about my experience.
First off, the HUGGING! The Finland brothers and sisters had been practicing hugging for the past year in order to be able to give a warm welcome to the international delegates. This direction came directly from the branch, either the Finland branch or straight from Brooklyn. Hugging is in no way part of Finn culture so the hugs often came off as forced or awkward. Still, I credit the friends for putting the effort forth to step out of their comfort zone.
Our itinerary of activities was packed non-stop from Tuesday until the convention. You get zero down-time and you are basically being intensely love-bombed for several days before the actual convention. This included a morning of service with the local congregation and a tour of the Finland bethel. The branch requested all English speaking Finns to come to Helsinki for the week in order to run tours and provide hospitality to the delegates. We were constantly being served lunch, coffee, and cake. It felt like there was no expense spared in everything we did. The experience was overall very nice even though I am awake.
One of the activities was the "Evening Gathering" which was a musical presentation along with a full length play about Kaarlo Harteva and the public talks he would give in the city square. What I thought was most ironic was their portrayal of Kaarlo during a public talk where he invited the religious ministers to challenge his interpretation of the bible using only the scriptures. The crowd laughed when they portrayed the minister actually trying to use a scripture in defense of his beliefs. At the time I thought to myself, If only witnesses had his ability! Now most public cart-sitters just run away when someone challenges their beliefs using the bible itself.
Regarding the convention, what can I say. It was terrible. Tony Morris was the visiting speaker but he unfortunately didn't go off the rails much. He was time constricted because all his talks were translated in realtime with a Finn translator. One of the speakers in the very first talk said that Jehovah took disfellowshipping action against Eve and Adam perished because he put his family above Jehovah. Double face-palm on that one. The whole convention was put Jehovah ahead of everyone and everything, obey, obey, obey!
One of the remarkable experiences during the convention was a young girl, probably around 15 years old, who said that she was bullied at school because of her beliefs. What was the form that the bullying took? All her classmates stopped talking to her (out of nowhere) and she was treated as if she didn't exist! I think my jaw hit the floor when I heard this. The crowd was shocked but I could not believe the irony of what I was hearing. Most likely the classmates became aware of DF'ing and decided to show her what it means to be disfellowshipped. The poor girl, I felt sorry for her. But she will be awake in a few years anyways. Maybe she already is.
In the end the special conventions are a powerful indoctrinating and love-bombing tool. The leadership will be leveraging these special conventions to keep people in the organization. Expect to see a video feature on tv.jw.org dedicated to the special conventions, since professional photographers were everywhere!
I am convinced that most of the witnesses who attend these conventions really enjoy living in their fantasy land of jw-dom. No doubt, it is a very attractive life with everyone being well dressed/behaved and you instantly have a bond with millions of other believers. But once you ask yourself 'are my beliefs based on truth' all bets are off. JW's are content to just obey and trust the FDS/GB. They are not bible students anymore. They are resembling Scientologists more and more. The FDS/GB first decides on a doctrine or something they want to you do and then they cherry pick the scriptures to support them. They are brazen in going above and beyond what is contained in the scriptures.
I will try to answer any questions you have.