Posts by Soledad

12

How They (GB) sleep at night? comments plz

by sf in

jw
friends

i made this post in mulan's thread, yet want to make it a topic:.

"how does brown sleep at night?".

better question...what do his dreams and nightmares consist of??.

Soledad

I honestly dont know how they sleep at night, I know that when I was a witness the teeny tiniest things used to upset my "christian conscience"--everything from what I said, how I said it, what tv shows I watched, what music I listened to. I had to purge my room of anything and everything that even remotely suggested "worldly," that included albums, beauty magazines, books, etc., anything!

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

We judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions

15

The only thing I loved about field service

by Soledad in

jw
friends

blts on saturday mornings!!!!

mmmmmmmmmm......having one right now!!!

what the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.. we judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions

Soledad

BLTs on Saturday mornings!!!! MMMMMMMMMM......having one right now!!!

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

We judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions

13

Interview with the JW Geek

by Hmmm in

jw
friends

when i was a senior in high school, the principal called me in to her office to ask why i'd missed repeated deadlines to turn in my applications for colleges.

i went to a school for brainiacs, and was above average there--yes, i was a geek among geeks.

the principal asked me if it were a question of finances.

Soledad

I remember back around 1992 the first series of Watchtower study articles that had to do with post-high school education for witnesses. It was also my senior year of high school. I had taken the SAT only once in the spring, but scored very low. I purposely looked for a school that either did not require SAT scores or was a technical/vocational types school. The one thing that stuck out in my mind during my HS years was the kind of "confusion" that reigned over the Witnesses about college. Some looked down on it, but others thought that at least a two year degree was indispensable--rightly so. I guess I used an elder's daughter as a reference point--if she can go to a two year, so can I. But I could have done better. I kick myself every now and then when I think about all the advice my counselors and teachers gave me back then. I eventually got a BA in 1999, but I still think to myself that I could have done much much better (I dreamed of going to law school at one point).

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

9

JW needs another disaster!

by astroboy in

jw
friends

i'm a new poster and i know this subject has been touched on many times before after 911, but its amazing that a terrorist act that killed so many seemed to inject a little spark in many jws.

my jw brother (mini-servant) called the morning of the disaster and his first words to me was "i'm glad i'm on jehovah's side!

"...duh what does jehovah got to do with that!

Soledad

What I found extraordinary when I worked for two weeks at ground zero the total lack of JW's anywhere near the tragedy.

OHHH but they claim that they WERE there, talking to all the workers, right at ground zero, right on top of all that twisted steal and piping hot metal on 9/12!! They claim that 100+ workers got baptized at the very next assembly held at Greenpoint in October!! Man, where were you? You missed it! You wont survive Armageddon!! RUN, dont walk, to the nearest hall, right now!!

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

7

A little more about myself

by Soledad in

jw
friends

hi all again...i had said that i would post a little more about myself, not too much, i hate to be long-winded and boring, but i also like to keep my word, so here goes.. there were always 3 nagging doubts that i had in the back of my mind: one was how come we as witnesses commemorate the death of christ if he specifically states "do this until i return", yet the wts stated that he returned invisibly in 1914?

(im sorry i dont have any kind of bible handy to quote this scripture word for word, im just going on memory) of course i now know that the "official" position on 1914 has somewhat changed, but when i was a dub, it was all the rage, in addition to the whole "generation" teachings.

some witnesses in my congregation actually braced themselves for 1994, anticipating something.

Soledad

Hi all again...I had said that I would post a little more about myself, not too much, I hate to be long-winded and boring, but I also like to keep my word, so here goes.

There were always 3 nagging doubts that I had in the back of my mind: one was how come we as Witnesses commemorate the death of Christ if he specifically states "do this until I return", yet the WTS stated that he returned invisibly in 1914? (Im sorry I dont have any kind of bible handy to quote this scripture word for word, Im just going on memory) Of course I now know that the "official" position on 1914 has somewhat changed, but when I was a dub, it was all the rage, in addition to the whole "generation" teachings. Some witnesses in my congregation actually braced themselves for 1994, anticipating something. Nothing happened. Going back to my first doubt, I asked at least 2 elders and 3 MS in the congregation and got a total of 4 different responses and one very honest "I don't know" by an elder, which I thought was actually a great answer. As you all get to know me better, you will find out that I hate arrogance (WTS is full of that) and that I have a very low tolerance for bullshit (WTS has a lot of that too).

Doubt #2 had to do with a female witness, middle-aged, who claimed to be of the Annointed class. I thought that the collection of the annointed was completed in 1935? This person was not even being thought of in 1935, so how did she know she was annointed? I got some lukewarm response from my mom about how some annointed lose their seats in heaven for acting incorrectly, sinning, etc. I thought that was stupid. Furthermore, I thought, and probably still think, that everyone, Witness or not, should go to heaven after he/she dies. IMO it's only fair. Some people's lives suck so bad in the here and now, why wouldn't there be an afterlife so they can a least enjoy themselves in the hereafter? Just my 2c on that.

Doubt #3 had a lot to do with the nature of God and the idea of a destruction/Armageddon/1000 year rule/whatever. As I mentioned before, my father and 95% of my relatives are not Witnesses. Why should they die? What did they do wrong? They wont subscribe to the Watchtower and Awake, so they are worthy of death? That did not make sense to me. What made less sense was the concept of the 1000 year period of resurrection and paradise-like conditions, where at the end of these 1000 years, we would all be judged again, and some scripture in Revelation states how "many would fall..like grains of sand" (again paraphrasing). Why? Isn't surviving Armageddon enough? If many are expected to fail that final test, then what's the point?
Above all things this was the thing that disturbed me the most, but it was something I also feared the most. I knew from a very very young age, probably 4 or 5 that I hated the "dingdum hall" as I called it then with all my might, but what if I was wrong and God inflicted all his rage against me? I had nightmares as a kid, where I would see God's face and I would see the anger and disgust in his face as I stood before him (he looked a lot like an elder that at that time I was really scared of).

Over and over again, none of these things made sense to me. But I couldn't do anything about it. I just went through the motions, going to the meetings, field service, assemblies, on and on. When I was about 15-16 I butt heads with my father a lot because I think that he saw that I was "not doing anything with my life" as he put it, meaning that I had no future goals, no ambitions, I got just so-so grades at school with no plans for anything after HS but probably get married to some other JW fanatic and continue in "this lunacy." Even though I am out, it's kind of hard to undo all those years of mental conditioning; I have to coach myself through a lot of simple things that others would probably take for granted. So I guess in a way my father always gave me some clues, some nudges towards finding myself and defining myself outside of WTS crazy half-wit norms. It amazes me, all that from a man with a 3rd grade education.

More to come some other time, maybe

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

22

Possesed Smurf doll walks out of Kingdom Hall!!

by JamesG in

jw
friends

hey,.

new to this site, yippee!!!!.

has anyone heard the story about the possesed smurf doll that got up and walked out of the kingdom hall?.

Soledad

Well, the sister's integrity caused the Smurf to take an interest in the truth, and he is now serving as a Ministerial Servant in a congregation in Minnesota. One of the posters from this board personally met him at the last District Assembly.

Is this the artist formerly known as "Prince" and now known again as Prince??

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

24

Getting my feet wet

by Soledad in

jw
friends

i have been lurking here for about 3 months or so, and i guess i finally decided today to jump on in and join the board.

i dont want to make this post too long, but just to give you all a background......i was born in 1975 to a jw mother and non believing father.

i have one younger brother.

Soledad

Well, it seems that such mums are considered lower class Christians, never to be invited into the upper cliques.

You said it! Hit the nail on the head! That's exactly what it's like growing up in a so-called divided household. I found that generally there were two ways I could be viewed: either my mother, brother and I were "spiritually weak," or pity was bestowed upon us, as we were the "spiritual orphans and widow", and any of the witnesses who wanted to earn brownie points (and I dont mean the sweet edible kind) with the elders would go out of their way to treat us "extra special." [8>]
I remember one in particular who would buy me gifts, drop me off and pick me up at school (he had kids of his own to take care of, I always wondered why he was so nice? Then it all made sense after he was named elder just 2 years after his baptism ) I had always felt that I was never truly loved and cared for in the Org; it was all phony, fake, with a hidden agenda for the person involved, like I mentioned before.
Reborn you are right we do share similar backgrounds and I guess you can say I'm an adopted Puertorican/Newyorican

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

24

Getting my feet wet

by Soledad in

jw
friends

i have been lurking here for about 3 months or so, and i guess i finally decided today to jump on in and join the board.

i dont want to make this post too long, but just to give you all a background......i was born in 1975 to a jw mother and non believing father.

i have one younger brother.

Soledad

Lauralisa--soledad means "loneliness" in both spanish and portugese. that's pretty much how I can sum up my existence as a JW and now during this transitory period after JW life.

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.

24

Getting my feet wet

by Soledad in

jw
friends

i have been lurking here for about 3 months or so, and i guess i finally decided today to jump on in and join the board.

i dont want to make this post too long, but just to give you all a background......i was born in 1975 to a jw mother and non believing father.

i have one younger brother.

Soledad

Thanks everyone for your warm welcomes. My father is from Portugal. It's not so much that he had no say in how me and my brother were raised, it's that he's very "old world" in his beliefs, meaning that child rearing and household duties are women's responsibilities. He could have put a halt to what my mom was doing; he never agreed to it and he knew that it was causing me and my brother harm. But he just stood by and watched. By all means this does not mean that my father doesnt care or doesnt love us, I know that he does. But I guess, looking at it objectively, he is the type of father who wants to be involved in our lives, but at the same time allows us to make our own mistakes and learn from them. He is not the overprotective, overbearing type at all. He lives by the "tough love" motto, I guess.
He tells us why certain things are bad and how he feels about them, but in the end he lets us decide.
On the other hand my mother hasn't finished potty training yet, especially when it comes to my brother. Looking back at it now, I think I remained in the Organization longer than I should have mainly because of my mother's guilt trips. Anytime I talked or mentioned something about "not doing this anymore" she would go off in tears and talk about not joining her in paradise, etc., to this day.

24

Getting my feet wet

by Soledad in

jw
friends

i have been lurking here for about 3 months or so, and i guess i finally decided today to jump on in and join the board.

i dont want to make this post too long, but just to give you all a background......i was born in 1975 to a jw mother and non believing father.

i have one younger brother.

Soledad

Hi all!! I have been lurking here for about 3 months or so, and I guess I finally decided today to jump on in and join the board. I don’t want to make this post too long, but just to give you all a background……I was born in 1975 to a JW mother and non believing father. I have one younger brother. I DA’d myself in June 1998, after spending many months looking at websites, most notably Freeminds.org , and doing my own research on Watchtower doctrines. Prior to 1998 I had been inactive for part of 1996 and most of 1997. I live in NYC, I grew up in Mount Vernon, NY and had attended the Yonkers Spanish congregation (established in 1970) most of my youth, up until my baptism in 1988, and then the congregation split into two: Lincoln Park and Getty Square congregations. I remember all the hoopla about how the congregation is growing and how Jehovah’s blessing is ever present, blah blah. The “growth” was all about immigration into the area, that’s all. Folks who were already witnesses in their homelands just looked for the nearest hall and joined, usually bringing along with them an average of 6 children per couple, the aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, etc. I think you all get the idea.

I remember two specific times when I said to myself “enough is enough”: the summer district assembly at Nassau Colliseum in 1996 and a time I was participating in field service shortly after the assembly. I somehow just woke up, so to speak, and looked around me and realized that at age 21 there was just no way I was going to spend the rest of my life living like this, sort of in a void. If any one here has been raised by one believing and one non-believing parent, I think you know kind of how that feels like---you just don’t belong anywhere. The more active JW’s didn’t treat me right, I had a constant feeling of being left out. Moreover, my father was severely injured in a construction accident when I was only 6 weeks old, therefore it was my mom who had to support the household and my dad stayed home. She took a night job when I was about 5, shortly after my brother was born, so I never knew about meetings other than on Sunday and field service until I was 10, when my mom quit her job and we all moved to Caracas, Venezuela.

It was there in Venezuela that I started participating more in field service and going to more meetings and more assemblies, often traveling very far away. Going back to my father, I mentioned that he was always a non-believer, however, there were many times when he studied (almost completing the “red book”) and sometimes he would halfway attend the meetings---leaving after the public talk, attending the assemblies only on Sunday, and to this day he still attends the Memorial every year. I think that some people are under the impression that having a non-believing parent grants you the best of both worlds—that you can have your cake and eat it too. Not in my case. My father is El Primo cheapo, the granddaddy of all cheapskates. Since he left all child rearing duties to my mother, despite her being exhausted from working so late into the night and having to look after my younger brother during the day, that meant no birthdays, no Christmas, no nothing. My father was ok with all that because he thought that holidays and birthdays were a greedy-capitalist American invention, that back in my homeland we never had so much, etc etc. My father grew up in Europe right after WWII, so he’s very used to going without. To this day he still thinks that a complete meal consists of potatoes, onions and olive oil—end of story.

I’m so sorry that this post is so long, I guess I’ll post more of my story bit by bit, rather than all at once. You all seem like a great group and I look forward to some great interactions! Enjoy your day!

What the head makes cloudy the heart makes very clear.