Rachel

Are these actions by gangs of hooligans? Just wondering because I know Britain and Ireland have a lot of trouble with these gangs. Of course whatever the cause Jehovah will watch over his people and care for their spiritual needs. My prayers go out to Him for your congregation.

I feel this is a very important topic. I have been in the truth many years. Over 50. I have been in many congregations through moving around not because of giving up on any of them. Have I been in congregations with problems? Of course. They all do. Different congregations full of different imperfect people= different problems. Now let me share some personal experiences with you all. The congegation that bugged me the most: This goes back thirty some years. Our elders were not very loving, or had problems showing love. They made endless rules. We were I think THE white shirt congregation.They kept white shirts for speakers in the coatroom and if a speaker wore a colored shirt they made him change it! Whenever a strict talk was being given the congregation seemed to all cringe because we knew we were going to get lectured and blamed for doing something that the wicked Israelites did...even though we were not doing anything of the kind. The school overseer made little kids giving their talks cry. Really! Some grown ups too. Tact was not used much at all. Rather than being built up I would often come home from meetings and cry. So this sounds really negative right? Well all that time I knew that this was not good and kept praying about it as I'm sure many others were. Because there were some wonderful brothers and sisters in that congregation and we were all waiting on Jehovah to fix it. And he sure did! Jehovah got out his BIG BROOM and via primarily Watchtower articles aimed zingo! right at each and every one of these problems even SPECIFICALLY naming the white shirt problem and how they were NOT to do this....well he cleaned that congregation up but good! I think some of the elders who got corrected sternly, by our COs and who knows who else maybe up to letters from the governing body, heads are still spinning from getting taught point blank to stop it! To show love. To care for the sheep not beat us down. One CO even smacked down an overly blunt hurtful point made by an elder in a talk when the brother called on the CO for a comment. The congregation looked so relieved we almost applauded. The original group of elders evidently took the advice to heart and made the necessary changes. New elders were added who were very loving and things did get so much better. Now let me move up to the present day. The recent elder who really bugged me: Nowadays I have learned to rely on Jehovah to clean up any problem. I saw it in the congregation I just mentioned and saw it in others many times. Jehovah SEES and WILL clean up those problems. So who was bothering me most lately and how did it work out? Well, most of you know I have severe fibromyalgia and emotional difficulties and also have to care for my very old Mom around the clock. Most of my elders here are understanding but one brother...let's call him Brother Zealous, first comment to me when I came to this congregation wasn't 'Hello sister how are you?' It was 'When are your service days?' Well due to my problems I don't have regular service days and mainly do informal witnessing. So, yeah I was not off to a good start with this brother. But I knew it was his problem and that Jehovah would fix him in time. So for these past four years I prayed specifically for this brother because he does have many good qualities and does love Jehovah. So I prayed and waited. Sooooo...... One of the main things this brother just could not understand was how incredibly hard it is to care for my Mom. Other sisters in my congregation are in similar situations and I wasn't the only one dealing with this. But he had never had to deal with it until........ drumroll...... his wife's very old grandfather had to be moved into their house! Now he has his wife and mother and father in law also living there and they of course help with Grandad but boy did this brother change over the past year! At first he just seemed kind of stunned and out of it. He even had to miss a few meetings! Gasp! He never ever missed meetings. He started to goof up occasionally on talks from being tired out. He got really sick with the flu. He never got sick before that. He forgot stuff! I mean obviously being part of a care-giving family was getting to him. Sooooo..... Recently I called the brothers asking for a shepherding call because I have so much to deal with and just needed to talk to them. So of course Br. Zealous and a sweet very experienced older brother came by. Now I could not believe how kind and genuinely understanding Br. Zealous has become. He actually said he could not understand how I was taking care of my Mom because I am just one person while the four able-bodied members in his family are getting bowled over by taking care of one Grandad. He really learned! He really understands. Now his talks are excellent! He has conducted the WT several times and stressed the need to truly care for one another and how even 15 minutes of time can be counted by elderly and sick publishers. How we must never look down on these ones. I could go on and on but it's like he has turned into a whole new wonderful elder. Yep, Jehovah saw exactly what was needed in this case and took care of it. I could give lots of other experiences of how Jehovah fixed the specific problems and continues to fix them becase it is HIS organization ruled over by His Son Jesus Christ. They see everything and in time they WILL and definitely DO take care of each and every problem in any congregation. They are ALL HIS. If your congregation has problems they know all about it. Pray and wait and watch and see what they do about it. It will be awesome!

I just noticed that recently. I love how the brothers are keeping up with or even ahead of the latest technology.

We know that early people were not primitive. Jehovah said that anything could be attainable for them because they were very intelligent. That is why he confused their language to spread them all over the earth. Obviously they took their skills with them.

I now use my I Pad for all the meetings. I've got just about everything on it and can pull up any book or publication without lugging tons of books around. I can't do that because of my really bad fibromyalgia pain. Several others now use their tablets at all the meetings too. I am NOT old school tech-wise. As for embarrassing funny tech things....my phone gets bad weather alerts and makes that alert warning sound. And it did go off near the end of the service meeting a few weeks ago and everyone laughed. Afterwards one of our elders wanted to make sure it wasn't a tornado warning. It wasn't.

Does this help? https://www.samsungsmartcam.com/web/

http://www.snopes.com/photos/technology/escherian.asp

Lol, Vernalee I guess you can tell this is a subject I have strong feelings about. But this is one thing that has caused needless divisions for as long as I have been in the truth and that's a loooong time! Why some need to judge others so much has always puzzled me. I know the vast majority of my brothers and sisters really love Jehovah and sincerely want to please him and I love them! If they like something I don't or vice versa it's just our normal differences as individuals. I know what you mean when you say your two sisters reacted like they did. I've seen that happen so many times. It seems to be related to the need some have for a lot of rules rather than really learning Bible principles. Today's WT even mentioned that we don't need long lists of rules,if we know real Bible principles.

I was SO glad to see this stated right out there in front of everyone! Sometimes the very nit-picky ones say "the society said we can't watch that!" Nope they never did! Yet some have spurned association over such personal choices and spread negative gossip about anyone whose choices differ from theirs. ​I have personally gotten very choose y FOR MYSELF about what I watch. But others might make other choices and well....... OK. WE EACH have to answer to Jehovah for what we do. WE should not be judging others over their conscientious decisions. We are to use our Bible trained consciences to make our OWN decisions. What did Jesus say about trying to pick gnats from another person's eye? Don't do it! Take care of your OWN eyes. Don't your brothers and sisters.

Hi there. I live north of there about five miles away. All the brothers and sisters are OK. The only injury was the driver of the truck the train hit. The derailment is mainly in an industrial area not near too many homes and they have not evacuated any homes. It is not directly close to the Kingdom Halls in the area. Here is a map: The star on the left is the Rosedale Kingdom Hall. The red marker and green arrow are the location of the train derailment. A brother in our congregation was right near it. He just posted this pic of the explosion. He is OK.

It is indeed Homer Simpson.

If its TV opinion that counts . . I wait with baited breath for Sheldons take on this. He will be annoyed that the next Nobel prize will not be his . . but yeh! Indeed! On the rerun tonight Sheldon mentioned how the Higgs Boson had not yet been found. Now that they think they have what will Sheldon do?!

And I even partially understand the whole Higgs Boson thingie! Thanks to many years of Star Trek watching. Clearly it's just one more of Jehovah's tools for all the amazing things He does. Humans always think they are so smart when they find one of His tools. But it really proves how very little we know. Spock (the wisest of all the imaginary scientists) was always humble enough to know that he did not know everything and was always willing to find awe in new discoveries.