Pete Zahut

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Posts by Pete Zahut

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  9

  Happy pandemic Thanksgiving to all!!

  by Biahi in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hope you all have a happy, healthy day.

  🍷🍠🥦🇺🇸.

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  Pete Zahut

  Just to be on the safe side, our turkey is wearing a mask.
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  27

  Circuit overseers wives.

  by stan livedeath in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  or..as i remember the title..circuit servants wives.

  but then i left 40+ years ago.. any recollections of those females that led such an unnatural existence?.

  those that i recall seemed such aloof creatures..

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  Pete Zahut

  #1)

  My Mother used to be quite a seamstress and was known for the dresses and suits she'd make for herself and my sisters. The Circuit Overseers wife, (J.C.) known for hoity toity manner, her long red fingernails and showy hats with feathers, had admired my mothers clothes and once she found out that she could sew, asked her to make a wool suit for her. My father had been laid off his job at the time and they needed the extra money so Mom agreed.

  She gave Mom a pattern in her size and a swatch of the material she wanted. Mom took her measurements and they agreed on a price. She then purchased the expensive wool, the special buttons and the satin for the lining, all with her own money and set about making the suit which involved hours at the sewing machine and a lot of hand work.

  A few weeks later when they were visiting a nearby congregation, the Circuit Overseer's wife came by our house and tried the suit on only she had put on a bunch of weight and it was too tight. She claimed that the suit had been made too small. Rather than make an issue of her obvious weight gain, Mom had to let the suit out, including the lining which wasn't an easy job. She stayed up till all hours of the night in order to get it done before they left for their next assignment. Long story short, the suit was altered to fit but after trying it on, the CO's wife decided she didn't like the color of the fabric and how it looked on her and refused to pay Mom for the material and for her work. Mom was too kind to insist that the lowly wife of a servant of Jehovah, pay up so she ate the cost herself.

  Years later that same C.O and his wife returned to our territory. The C.O pulled my mother and teenaged sister aside and counseled them for wearing knee high boots out in service. He said he was from Chicago and only prostitutes wore boots and it could give people at the door the wrong impression. My mother got angry and said,

  " It's 30 degrees outside and we're expected to wear skirts and dresses out in service. These boots keep us warm. Besides that, around here, only prostitutes wear long blood red fingernails like your wife does. I can only imagine what people at the doors must think as this so called humble Ministers Wife turns the pages of the Bible with those nails of hers....talk about a distraction."

  She and my sister turned walked off and nothing more was said about boots. (P.S. This is the same Circuit Overseer that years later made an announcement when Price died calling him a "Brother in good standing", even though he was known worldwide for his makeup, facial hair, and wild hairstyles and gender bending clothing)

  #2)

  I was 23 and had been engaged for a few months to my beautiful wife who lived in another part of the State, we wanted to wait for a special occasion to announced it to our engagement to our families so know one in my Congregation knew I was engaged yet. The Circuit Overseer and his wife and their 20 year old daughter were visiting our congregation and apparently she was interested in me as a former Bethelite and so unknown to me, a sister in our congregation decided to play matchmaker and invite me over to lunch after the Sunday meeting.

  I knew who the daughter was as she had been visiting congregations in our area with her parents since she was I was in high school. She wasn't a very good looking girl, pale and thin and worse yet she was about as interesting as a bucket. One of my friends used to unkindly refer to her as Ol' Brezhnev Brows because like her father, she had heavy dark eyebrows that sort of met up in the of her forehead like the Russian Leader Leonid Brezhnev.

  Once I arrived for lunch it became apparent that it was a set up. The C.O was at the head of the table and I was seated across from the C.O's bossy wife and conspicuously next to Brezhnev Brows the daughter. The next thing I know, I'm being grilled about my spiritual goals and why I left Bethel and why I wasn't Pioneering and being questioned about my job and what my plans for the future were etc. I could see what was happening so I decided that it was a good time to break it to them gently to that I had become engaged a few weeks ago but we were waiting to announce it at my future wife's parents 25th anniversary party as a surprise.

  Once I said I was engaged, the girl got up from the table and made some excuse about needing to go shopping and that she needed the car. She drove off and left me sitting there with her Mother grilling me about my fiancé, what her name was, her spiritual standing, who her parents were and doubt our wedding plans. She said she recognized the family name and I proudly showed her the photo of my beautiful smiling dimpled faced finance that I carried in my wallet. She sniffed and flung it back to me and said that weddings were a waste of time and money and that one "spiritual" couple she knew, were putting the Kingdom first and got married alone at the Hall by an Elder and immediately drove away pulling their little travel trailer and had their honeymoon in a rural territory where the "need was great". (she was probably bitterly referring to her husband and herself 30 years ago)

  The Sister giving the luncheon got angry and said "I don't care what anyone says, I think It's wonderful that Pete is engaged and is having a wedding. I had a big wedding and I'd do it all over again because it was the only opportunity I ever had to get my Grandparents and other non JW relatives inside a Kingdom Hall and to our reception where they got to see us as normal people !"

  The C.O and his wife weren't having any of it and the lunch was suddenly over.
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  52

  Collapse of JW Org - Possibly on the Horizon?

  by JWTom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this topics get a great deal of discussion here.

  what i find interesting is even some of my pimi family is embracing the reality that all is not well with jw.org and that many current jws are just going through the motions due to not having a good way out of the org.

  wondering what could realistically lead to the collapse of jw.org in the not distant future?

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  Pete Zahut

  Large institutions that came into existence back when the Watchtower did and who seemed unshakable, have been disappearing one by one.

  Sears and Macys for example as well huge newspaper and magazine establishments that seemed unshakable have either gone away or are about to. Soon there will be very few libraries because you'll be able to download any book you want at any hour of the day. Large universities will become more and more rare as students will be attaining higher education virtually. The only reason these places will exist is simply because people want to be together.

  In my area, in the 3 mile stretch between my house and the Kingdom Hall there are about 7 large churches. Most of them are adding on or remodeling. Besides Sunday and weekly services where the parking lots are full, they offer education programs, sports and music activities and social services for their membersWhat JW's value the most about their religion is the association and that is all but gone these days. Instead of playing up the association aspect and providing a bigger sense of community for the JW's, the folks at Watchtower have always discouraged it and have only allowed association to take place on their own terms. They have always been afraid of what might happen if their members got organized without them.

  With the changes that the internet and technology has made in the world, the information the control the Watchtower once had over their followers is dwindling. They need to provide a bigger sense of community if they hope to survive. Attending stale repetitive meetings just isn't enough for people anymore and trudging around from door to door to spread a supposedly urgent message, is making less and less sense, to more and more people.
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  53

  Politics and Hope

  by lriddle80 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so there are a lot of atheists on here.

  my question: where does your hope come from?

  that the right people will be put in political positions and will eventually form a utopian society that will meet all needs and we will have equality for all?.

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  Pete Zahut

  Politics and Hope

  Hope is a tease designed to prevent us from accepting reality. We can claim to know what's going on in the big scheme of things but all we really have is the here and now.

  Life has some wonderful aspects as well as some difficult realities. Better to face them head and make the best of things within our own capabilities and within the framework of our own circumstances.
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  26

  Congregation Letter - 2021 Magazines Delayed???

  by JWTom in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we had a letter read in our cong.

  last week that said the public wt and awake would be delayed during the beginning of 2021. meaning we would just use the 2020 version into 2021 and there would be no new ones at the beginning of 2021 until an undetermined time sometime during the 1st half of 2021. at least that is the gist that i remember.

  it was in what atlantis provided but there was no further detail....very brief.. any more intel or speculation on this?

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  Pete Zahut

  Magazines delayed...zoom meetings.....no assemblies....letter writing...none of it makes much of a difference to the main objective that JW's claim to have which is spreading the good news.

  If the end of this system is dependent upon the "good news" being spread throughout the earth, a few well placed television, radio and internet ads could have the job done in a matter of hours. They could briefly tell people the gist of the message and where to learn more about it. The supposed end to mankind suffering could happen within the year.

  Instead they're spending millions on building a state of the art video production facility to make cultish videos to sell to JW's. In the year 2020 JW's are still carrying on as if it's the 1950's writing letters one by one in longhand.

  Spreading the message in a timely manner has never been their true objective.
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  15

  Thinking about Flipper

  by HappyDad in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with all the fires raging in california and oregon, i have been thinking about flipper and hoping he is ok. .

  flipper..........if you read this, know that we are sending love your way.

  we will most likely worry about you until we hear from you..

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  Pete Zahut

  I left a voicemail with Flipper to see how he's doing and let him know about this post. I'll reply once I hear from him. He is in Grass Valley which is a good distance from the fires themselves but the smoke must be pretty bad.
  

  
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  27

  UGHHHHH Wife wants to pioneer. Our future together doesn’t look promising

  by goingthruthemotions in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  ughhhhh wife wants to pioneer.

  our future together doesn't look promising .

  i told her she doesn’t know what she is getting into.

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  Pete Zahut

  Seems like a smart time to become a pioneer now that the ministry is virtually at a standstill. She'll get to have all the Kudos without having to really do anything and it won't be her fault if she doesn't get her time in.

  I wouldn't take it too seriously or "draw any lines in the sand" over this. If it were me, I'd play along with it realizing that she'll soon tire of making phone calls and writing letters. You could even have her practice on you as if she were presenting the "Truth" to you for the first time.

  My wife had relatively no problem with being a JW but she left soon after I did. Without judgement or arguing, I used to tell her that I had sort of forgotten what the reasoning was behind certain doctrines and in explaining them to me, she realized how feeble the JW reasoning was.

  I never argued, or pushed her into a corner but instead followed up with further questions, hoping that she'd be able to refresh my memory. In the process, she began to look past the JW mantra and to ask her own questions instead of waiting to being told what to believe.

  (Simplified Example)

  Me: I've forgotten what scriptures we used to show the reason that Jesus had to die for all mankind.

  Her: John xxx says that he had to lay down his life to buy back the life that Adam and Eve lost for mankind when Satan convinced Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit.

  Me: Ok...yeah I remember that part but I can't remember what the actual scriptures we used to support the belief that Satan, who had been alive since the beginning of time and was the one who directly rebelled against Jehovah, would remain alive all these thousands of year but Adam and Eve and the rest of the yet unborn human race had to be punished immediately and would continue suffering and dying by the billions?

  I'd go along with or agree with whatever explanation she provided, but in the process she got to entertain alternative thoughts that she'd have normally rejected if I had I stated them outright or had been confrontational.
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  30

  Worldwide preaching campaign targeting government officials.

  by smiddy3 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  does anybody know what this message will contain ?

  is it designed to provoke a response that will bring persecution on the religion ?

  or is it just going to be some meaningless weak campaign to get the rank and file all excited about it and achieving nothing.. or is it going to suggest to the government officials that this mob could very well be the next jonestown /wacol incident and we need to act now.

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  Pete Zahut

  Hopefully they'll scold the U.S. Government for making them look bad back in 1986 when they raised another false alarm when George Bush proclaimed that there'd be a "new world order". They should demand and apology and an immediate reinstating of that objective . (fast forward to the 2.30 mark)

  https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4528359/user-clip-george-bush-defines-world-order
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  18

  Belgium: Jehovah's Witnesses will be tried for hate crimes on February 16.

  by yalbmert99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  belgium: jehovah's witnesses will be tried for hate crimes on february 16.. https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20200915_93224449.

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  Pete Zahut

  Members will claim that they shun of their own free will.

  Decades worth of JW literature detailing how former JW's are viewed, will show the courts otherwise.
  
  
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  17

  "I still miss it Dad" My 41 Year Son Admitted

  by 1234 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on the 18th of september i turned in my disassociation letter in to the tigard congregation, 19 years ago.. my son turned in his letter in november 2001, 19 years ago shortly after me.

  he was 21 years old.. two days ago we were working together on a wrap for his a/c unit on his bus.. out of blue, he says "i still miss it dad.

  not the religion.

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  Pete Zahut

  I would just like the ones I knew, could see me now, doing things most people do for enjoyment and pleasure , not things like robotic , as attending assemblies, or participating in JW speak.

  Yes...it is very satisfying to run into former JW friends and have them be amazed that you're looking so well and that your life isn't the train wreck that they fully expected it to be.

  When we left the "Truth" I half expected my life to be cursed by God or to receive an onslaught tribulation from Satan. Instead, the years of anxiety that I suffered through as a JW, disappeared as if overnight. I landed the best job I ever had, our son enrolled in university and ended up with a degree and a job as an Environmental Scientist and so on. A tiny part of the former superstitious JW part of my brain suspected that all this success could be Satan rewarding me for going against Jehovah. Fortunately I was old enough to realize that this was nonsense and went out of my way to prove them wrong. But some young former JW's don't have the benefit of hindsight and fall into the trap of letting the old superstitious worrisome JW mindset, control them.

  I wish that every former JW could have the same success that I had and many, if not most ; do well. Unfortunately, "still in" JW's don't hear of, or don't speak about them. They only discuss the ones who fit their narrative. The ones who because of the low opinion of themselves that they were conditioned to believe, headed straight for the things not worth having in this world, simply because as JW's they were taught that if you're not a JW, then you are "worldly" and "worldly people" only do bad.