It never fails! Wherever we've lived, except when we lived on an Army post, we have ALWAYS been visited at least once by the JWs. I even got visits from the JWs when I lived in Armenia and Germany. The funny thing is, we live way out in the woods, where no one bugs us.

Today, it was two well dressed women. One of them started giving me her spiel, talking about the government and why I should be concerned, and I noticed the Watchtower and said, "I'm really not interested."


She said, "Okay, may I ask why?"


And I said, "I'm just not interested."

With that, they left... Maybe I should have told her I was LDS!

Okay, here's what Shila said you need to tell them. My Shila's ex-JW.

When they show up, you say "I can't talk to you because I'm in the Witness Protection Program."

God, I love her. :)

Ron

I usually just do what the OP did. I say "No, thank you." If they ask why, then I say something else dismissive like "Because I'm not interested." "Because I don't want to get into a religious discussion with you." "Because I don't care."

Oh, I know. How about "If I give you $20, will you show me your tits?"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2011 03:56PM by Makurosu.

Yeah, it was really weird. Happened in 1996, when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. They rang the bell and I opened the door and they started talking about God in Armenian. I told them in Armenian that I didn't understand. They switched to Russian, which I don't speak or understand at all. They asked which language and I said in Armenian, "English". They said in Armenian, "Difficult." They turned and left, then came back a couple days later with a copy of "Awake!" in English. I actually read it because it was in English.

The German JWs were very respectful. My husband just said, "Nein danke" and they never bothered us again.

They'd sit at a picnic table in the shade, then toddle over in their high heels to confront people before they could get into their cars after they left the restrooms.

I think this was likely illegal since this was a state owned and operated service area.

After that incident we stayed in a motel in N. California with JW books and pamphlets stacked in the bedside stands. We tossed these in a dumpster and phoned the motel chain headquarters to complain. They apologized when we told them we wouldn't deal with them in the future if this kind of practice was the norm.

We've trained them to stay off of our street but we can't control the nation's rest areas, parks, and other vacation sites.

Not a JW, and I don't condone their practices, but why would this be illegal? They were just as entitled to be there as you were, and if any speech is allowed in the area, all speech is pretty much allowed. It's not constitutionally permissible to discriminate against speech based on its content. Then again, I'm not an attorney (yet), and I'm certainly not a constitutional scholar. I could be wrong, but like I said, I don't see how this is illegal unless there was some prohibition against talking to other visitors to the park or something.

And religious preaching is allowed on public street corners but only with a permit at parks, campgrounds, and hiking trails.

In another life, I was working graveyard shift, and had just gotten home from work, the ex had loaded up the kids and taken them to school. I had eaten and just laid down to sleep when the doorbell rang. I sleep in my skivvies, tighty whities.

I thought if I don't move, they will go away. The doorbell rang again. So, I got up to see who it was. Sure enough it was JW's. I heard this works from a friend of mine, so I didn't even put on a robe. I answered the door in my underwear. It was hilarious! The two couples didn't know how to act. The men sort of pushed the watchtower at me, and the women turned immediately and headed for the car, with the men.

It works, I lived in that house for 15 years after that, and never saw another JW!

That's hilarious! But I wouldn't want to inflict the sight of my body in underwear on ANYONE!

An acquaintance of mine, an ex-pat from Israel who lives in Kentucky, I think, was awakened one July 4th morning by the door bell. He went to the door in shorts and a t-shirt and found two female JW's there, who asked him if they could discuss the Bible with him. Now, being an Israeli Jew, he started SINGING (yes, if you get a Hebrew Bible with all the nikudos in it, you have musical notation, if you know how to read it - I do) the first few verses of Genesis. The women looked at him as if he'd just, well, they looked nonplussed. He walked behind them and looked at their copies of their version of the Bible, said, "Ah, a translation, and a bad one at that!," went back inside his house, shut the door. They've never been back.

A former college roommate of mine (a California Jew, this time) was awakened one weekend morning and looked out his window to see two JW's there. He took a magic marker and put some filled-in circles on the palms of his hands, went to the door in his underwear, said something about "hanging around," let them JW's see the palms of his hands. They went RUNNING, never to come back.

That's hilarious!

we lived on 5 acres of land in the middle of nowhere and the JW's had been a big problem coming out to our house even though we had said we were not interested. Finally the last time they came I told them we were LDS and they couldn't have left faster. And they never came back.

Now the missionaries are a whole other story. I just saw them here on post at the PX with a person in the military and they were stocking up their basket and the military person was paying for all their items.... it frustrated me. I almost complained. But I didn't.

Yeah... it would piss me off to see mishies in the PX, too. Military folks aren't supposed to buy stuff for civilians, even if it's for poor mishies. It happens, though. When we were in Germany, American civilians would try to get military folks to buy them stuff like peanut butter at the commissary or mail stuff through APO for them. Technically, that's not really allowed.


My husband resigned when we lived on Fort Belvoir and requested no contact. A military dude from the church showed up at our house one day. Husband was TDY. The church guy looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin.

For some reason people think that stuff at the commissary in Germany will be cheaper than in the states... lol we were there last year and now we are stateside and I have to say the prices are about the same on and off post.... but we too had family who wanted us to buy things and ship it to them. We never did.

I should have complained about the missionaries in the PX but I didn't want to draw attention to myself and become a project. Even though we have resigned. While in GA our family sent the missionaries over and gave them our numbers etc. We too had some military LDS folks show up and it was frustrating.

We will be leaving GA for NC in April. I'm kind of hoping we find another house waaaay out in the woods. We haven't seen the Mormons out here.

Really, I'd rather be moving back to Germany. I think when my husband retires, we're going to try to get him a contractor gig.

moving back to Germany. LOL Or somewhere in Europe if we can swing it! We never saw the missionaries over there. Members were everywhere but we stopped having problems with them when we resigned and let them know we were resigning. Well and the fact that the primary pres. started sending things to my daughter and with the help of RfM I wrote a very nice little email that put that to a stop :)

I think most of all though we like the distance from our family... they have started what DH and I have dubbed the "Reactivation Committee" They all have gotten so much interest in our lives etc now and calling and emailing, so essentially love bombing. At least in Germany it was just emailing.

Oh, I hear you on distance! My family is not LDS and neither is most of my husband's family. His ex wife and kids are TBMs, but they refuse to have anything to do with him. We do get occasional guilt trips from my husband's Catholic family, though.

I have to admit, though, because thousands of miles away from family was so peaceful. No guilt trips were laid because it was understood that we were far away.

I just liked living in Germany because it's so close to so many wonderful places. The beer is excellent and once you broke the ice with the people, they were really good folks! And Germany is just gorgeous, too! I wouldn't mind moving to Belgium for the same reasons. We were so bummed when we have to leave Germany a year early to come to GA, where we knew we'd be moving in less than two years. I've had it with all the moves.

But now that we are in MO I am freezing to death lol :) I am ready to move somewhere else! Just not now. I like being in one place for a few years. LOL

Yes being in Europe was fun. We got our full three years there. And part of us was ready to be back stateside, and now we are hoping we can get back into Europe. With DH's reclass we have a few more options that weren't available to us so we are hoping to get to go back sometime soon!

Where in Georgia are you?

Also, please remember to thank your husband for his service, OK?

We live south of Atlanta. My husband works at Fort McPherson, which is closing in September. His office is moving to Fort Bragg. And thanks for your thanks... I will pass the message to him!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2011 12:43PM by knotheadusc.

thank you. I'm not that far from Fort Mac, and a friend of mine used to be sent out of there (he was a reservist) to do lengthy TDYs. They don't send him out anymore, I'm afraid. He did 2 years in Qatar.

knotheadusc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My husband resigned when we lived on Fort Belvoir and requested no contact. A military dude from the church showed up at our house one day. Husband was TDY. The church guy looked like he wanted to jump out of his skin.


Out of curiosity, why did the church guy react so?

michael Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> knotheadusc Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > My husband resigned when we lived on Fort
> Belvoir and requested no contact. A military dude
> from the church showed up at our house one day.
> Husband was TDY. The church guy looked like he
> wanted to jump out of his skin.
>
>
> Out of curiosity, why did the church guy react so?


My husband sent his letter of resignation in May 2006. He had never once attended church in the Fort Belvoir area. In fact, he had quit attending church several years prior. But he decided he wanted to make his departure official. He got no response from the local leaders until November 2006.

It was a Sunday afternoon and my husband was TDY. I was putting up the Christmas tree and had gone to the PX to pick up some lights. When I came back, there was an empty sedan parked on the service road behind our house. The house was set up so that we had a driveway and a couple of parking spots by a storage shed across the service road. The parked car effectively blocked all of our parking spots. I was pretty annoyed, but I just drove across the edge of our yard to get into my driveway. A few minutes later, I looked out the window, and there was a well dressed but nervous looking man in a suit and wool coat in our backyard.

I opened the door. He asked me if I was "Mrs. C". I said I was. He asked if my husband was wanting to leave the church. I said he was. He asked me to tell my husband the church was working on it. He then took off like a bat out of hell.

There are several reasons why I think the guy was nervous.

1. He wasn't supposed to be doing church business on an Army installation, particularly since my husband had requested no contact. Our next door neighbor was a member of JAG and knew the guy (their kids played soccer together), so he might have been worried we were going to complain.

2. He might have been worried that my husband was going to be angry and say stuff to him. He never did ask me to get my husband so he could speak to him personally.

3. He might have realized that he'd blocked our parking spots and was embarrassed. I don't know why he parked in the service road. The guy lived on post, so it wasn't like he was lost and there were several parking spots across the main street that passed in front of our house.

4. Any number of other reasons...

you should have told her you were Ba'hai!

Maybe I should have taken a clue from this old lady...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0p4_GGDbS0

Dirty language...

*LOL*

Comp and I were tracting in Germany. A man answered the door stark naked, dripping wet, he even opened the door wide enough for us to see. Said he was in the shower, and to come back later. I don't think we ever did! I'm sure the guy was laughing his ass off after closing the door!

ROFL... I bet he wasn't circumcised!

Ya know, I really didn't take the time to look that closely! Haha! But I'm sure he wasn't, as Germans don't normally do that kind of thing!