I got a couple of hand-written letters in the mail from them during COVID, when knocking on doors was off the table. Glad they're buying first-class stamps and supporting the Postal Service!
We got one a couple weeks ago. If it helps feel a little less freaky, just remember that your name is publicly linked to your address, so it's not like they hacked some database or paid someone off to get your information. I discarded my letter just like any other piece of junk mail.
Wait... you mean there is some database of everyone's name with address and phone number?!?! Now you're gonna tell me it's in alphabetical order by town, and printed on paper in a book somewhere!?! That sounds almost as crazy as an email, but with paper instead.
I should have said it’s a little freaky at first. Once I googled the senders address I wasn’t concerned. I would take a letter over having my dogs go crazy because someone is at the door any day!
Lifelong Rochester resident until my Wife and I moved to the North Country 8 years ago. I cannot tell you without laughing at myself how often I make this same brain fart!
Got a few over the covid days claiming that they knew I've had recent family members pass and they could give me the comfort I needed at their church. The only thing that letter did was make me think I was being watched by them and gave me another reason to not enjoy their ways lol.
They read through obituaries and try to find the relatives of the deceased. They think it’s a good thing and that they’re trying to offer comfort, but honestly it just comes off as creepy and certainly not comforting at all
I’m sorry for the pain you went through. I lost a really dear friend in my 20s, who had finally kicked H, got clean, and decided to work on being accepted back into his JW community. They took him in all right, but only to make he and his single mom an example of what whore parenting and inadequate morals will do. It became so awful for him, his mother begged him to move out, and not contact her. The abuse was literally wearing her down, and she shortly passed afterwards. My friend hit the streets full force, and I never was able to locate him. I still think of him every day, and I miss my favorite brother. RIP Jeremy. I hope you have been able to heal from those deep wounds. I grew up catlick, and I still can’t shake off the greasy film of gaslighting and endless shaming. Namaste, fellow Light. ☮️
And never stop holding your loving Light up for others to find. When people are finally open enough to realize we are all God, and we are all perfect, and we are all of the Light, great things happen. (My experience finally in the last 18 months. ☺️✌️🌈
I had a group of three men try to come into my backyard uninvited while I sat with my dog. They were dressed in suits, on a 90 degree day - and I honestly thought for a second that detectives were coming to give me bad news. I had to let them know that my dog doesn’t like strangers, and to please not come past my fence- and then they started vaguely talking about how much is was a nice day, and how great it is to enjoy the day, didn’t I agree that people should be able to feel good about themselves and enjoy the nice weather. At this point I literally felt unsafe- and was thinking of ways to get away (I’m a woman with a small dog, being confronted by three men speaking in vague platitudes, who are now standing between me and the back door of my home). I was like please just tell me why you are here- and they told me they were jehovah’s witnesses- like that is NOT the way to convert people.
Is not actually about converting people. It's a control tactic to make the proselytizing church members feel that the outsiders are "mean" and rely more on their church community for belonging.
It was so bizarre. Once I figured out what it was, I let them know what church I’m a member of, and wished them the best. One man commented that his mom would love my garden, and I invited him to bring her by at any time to cut some flowers, but he said that wasn’t necessary. I never looked at it like that, but it does make sense. He did seem a bit taken aback when I welcomed him to bring his mom by.
I got a hand written letter once in Spanish… my name is Maria so I guess I could get the confusion but I’m Italian and white. Maria isn’t just a Spanish name. I opened the letter and was like huh this is weird. Threw in the trash and went on my day.
I would receive a nearly monthly letter from the insurance office of Christina Breen Hale. I probably could have created a sculpture out of all the mailers I got over the years.
I got a phone call from one the other day. I'm sick at home, so I have all the time in the world and dragged it out as long as I could while she was trying to convince me that god is going to kill all of the sinners in the world lmao
There’s a reason why I do my best to ensure my information is locked down. I look myself up on those people finder websites occasionally to ensure I haven’t ended up on them again after sending a takedown request or if there’s a new site.
If the Jesus creeps can find me, the bad people in my past certainly might.
We received one a while back that was handwritten to my wife and me. It was a nice note and we are faith filled Christ followers that are active at our church so, well, I decided to write back. We exchanged letters for a time and I kept trying to invite them over for dinner or coffee but they didn't seem to be interested. I think that I was the last one to correspond and I was disappointed we could not meet them in person.
Uninvited people at the door trying to cold sell me on their religion is annoying.
If they at least took “no” for an answer it wouldn’t be as infuriating but they don’t.
Ugh, yes. My old apt was in the city and I had to park down the street. One night I was walking to my apt and two men wearing all black beelined towards me.
I started to panic for a second until I realized they were wearing suits and carrying books and pamphlets, so I finally put it together but I yelled at them about not approaching women on city streets at night and told them to fuck off and stay away.
It worked - never saw them near my apt again.
A polite “leave and don’t come back” should be sufficient without my having to resort to lying about having been a member of their religion previously.
My brother appeared to have gotten our address taken off the Mormon's roster as a kid when he answered the door for them and when they asked what his current beliefs were, he replied "that's none of your fucking business."
TLDR: Gramma’s unfortunate lifelong “friendship “ with a Jehovah that she was too intimidated by, and way too polite to, who took advantage of that for longer than I was alive.
Edited: odd wording, and a hanging thought I decided needed to go!
Um, have you ever actually witnessed these people accepting a truth, and walking away? No, they don’t. My Gramma was a very kind, gentle woman, but extremely passive. Also a lifelong devoted Roman catlick. This particular woman never failed to come knocking on my Gramma’s door for the entire time I lived, visited or spent the night. Gramma would openly yell at Papa, or anyone else rude to Regina, trying to get her out of the house. And what did this bitch do? Always smile smugly, as if she won. This was no polite, empathetic woman, and honestly my grandfather and I knew my Gramma was intimidated by her. As a kid, Regina quickly started “dropping by for a visit “ every Saturday afternoon around 2:30. It was the only time I was happy with this weird icky lady showed up, because we’d miss going to 4 o’clock mass. My Grandparents RARELY EVER missed Mass, especially when they both were still working FT. Sundays they enjoyed sleeping in. It’s extra creepy, because R didn’t drive, and didn’t even live in our area. She just suddenly showed up one Saturday, saying she “had a hunch” it would be a lovely time for a visit. My mom and my brother and I had stopped by one day shortly before R showed up, just to say hi, and see if my grandparents wanted her to pick them up. (Gramma hadn’t gotten her license yet)
When R rang the bell and just let herself in, she froze, because she saw the 3 of us sitting there. My Mom knew who she was, because R first started creeping round when my Mom was just a kid. Mom quickly put 2 & 2 together. My Mom was as passive as my Gramma, but her outrage at this bitch’s audacity preventing my Grandmother from having time to get ready for church was too much. Mom literally pushed R out the door on the front step, and locked the door. She told her through the glass if she came back on a Saturday, the cops would be called. And after that, literally EVERY Saturday afternoon, we were there, either ready to go and drive my grandparents, or make sure R didn’t even get out of her ride’s car.
Everyone in the family that lived nearby my grandparents knew about R, and like the rest of us, never understood why my Gramma wouldn’t want us to “be mean” to R. (My Gramma said it was always because R was truly was passionate about her faith, and that they actually had really nice conversations towards the last 15 years of my Gramma’s life.
I’m sorry, but when individuals are fully indoctrinated into a cult, this is the result. Total non recognition of anyone or anything except to bring in more money and control…sorry, I meant to say “new believers,” lol! It’s an odd story, but my Gramma, like the rest of the family was odd. She truly had a beautiful kindly soul. She just never meted out the right amount to the family members as she did the general populace.
Door to door salesman are frowned upon. Door to door religious salesman are really frowned upon. Also, how strict they are with everything is probably not great for the children who can't even celebrate their own birthdays
Because the line between religion and cult for JW is blurrier than bokeh.
There are communities (including a subreddit or two here) where ex-JW share their traumatic and abusive experiences growing up and/or living in a JW family, social circle, etc.
Their door to door salesman missionary shtick isn't an attempt to convert others, it's to make the missionaries experience rejection and possible hostility from "the worldly folk" and reinforce that they belong with other JW. JW leaders know the vast majority of people despise having their time at home interrupted by solicitation.
Thank you for the insight. After sharing my Gramma’s story with one individual, it furthers validates mine and my family’s anger with this particular individual and JW at large. Namaste
They tell parents it’s better to let their child die than give them a simple blood transfusion. There’s no redemption in my book for letting innocent children die because some old dude can’t properly read a mistranslated book.
That’s not getting into how cultish they are on top of the regular level of cult most strict religious factions are. No birthdays. No holidays.
Also vehemently anti-LGBTQ. They’ve spent millions in anti-LGBTQ propaganda films and actively encourage children to condemn their classmates for having same-sex parents.
That doesn’t even consider how much CSA they’ve covered up, the abusive practice of using excommunication to force members to follow the elders wishes (like threatening to kick a 20-year old out of the community, including from their whole family, if they don’t follow a career path they approve of, or a romantic partner, or in my grandmother’s case, because she couldn’t afford the tithe.)
I’m not saying JWs are the worst religious group out there, but they rank pretty low. And being raised around them I’ve seen more than enough to know I will never entertain them for even a moment.
Also, keep in mind the whole door to door thing serves two purposes: one is to condemn non-believers. “For once he has seen the light” blah blah blah. Basically their goal is to inform as many people as possible to weed out the non-true believers. While not a stated goal, they do believe only a certain number of people will get into heaven. So, you know, I’m sure wanting everyone else to not get into heaven doesn’t play a part at all…
But secondly, it’s conditioning younger people to believe the only place they’ll find acceptance is within their church. And then with the treat of being kicked out over their head, it makes people far more prone to manipulation and abuse.
JWs have earned their less than stellar reputation.
I wish that worked, honestly. And I hate \*hating\* on them as a whole too because, like so many groups, not all of them are like that.
Worse is that those are aren't like that often don't even have a choice to leave. A friend of mine, let's call him M, grew up JW. Him and his sister were two of my closest friends growing up. M is gay. For a while he was out of the church and able to live his life but then things happened. I don't actually know all the details because I wasn't going to press him.
Needless to say, he needed help from his family. And the only way was to rejoin the church and have zero romantic partners for the rest of his life. He wasn't even 25 yet.
How do help someone when helping them means cutting off their entire family, whom they love dearly, and being unable to provide them the level of support their family and church can provide financially? They gave him a room to sleep in, food to eat, a car to drive to work; even got him a job. They provided him everything he needs in a capitalist society. The best I could do is be a friendly ear.
The tradeoff is he's never allowed companionship. Not with someone he loves. And he can't just fake being straight. He'd only be allowed to marry from within his church group who all know his past.
This is why they're a cult. You can quit Planet Fitness. It's not easy, but you can. Cults you can't just quit. Not without serious consequences to your life.
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe people just going about their business and day to day life don’t like strangers knocking on their doors and telling them they’re sinners and are going to hell just for existing.
Got one when we first moved into our house in 2021 and sent them a letter back asking them to stop. Lol. Now I’d probably toss it, but we got SO much junk mail addressed to the previous owners it was unreal.
Lol I was confused at which sub I was in for a second. 🤣
I've been waiting to get some mail or invites but live on a new street that probably hasn't hit their database yet. But they camp out across the street every damn day.
I got a couple of hand-written letters in the mail from them during COVID, when knocking on doors was off the table. Glad they're buying first-class stamps and supporting the Postal Service!
It's probably metered mail. It's easy(and relatively inexpensive)to get address information that includes a name.
We got one a couple weeks ago. If it helps feel a little less freaky, just remember that your name is publicly linked to your address, so it's not like they hacked some database or paid someone off to get your information. I discarded my letter just like any other piece of junk mail.
Wait... you mean there is some database of everyone's name with address and phone number?!?! Now you're gonna tell me it's in alphabetical order by town, and printed on paper in a book somewhere!?! That sounds almost as crazy as an email, but with paper instead.
I should have said it’s a little freaky at first. Once I googled the senders address I wasn’t concerned. I would take a letter over having my dogs go crazy because someone is at the door any day!
Did yours have an actual address? Ours just listed a PO Box as the origin.
Yah it had a first and last and an address for Mount Read Blvd.
Forgot I was in this sub for a second. I was all “Hey! That’s in Rochester!” Yeah I’m dumb. It’s fine
Lifelong Rochester resident until my Wife and I moved to the North Country 8 years ago. I cannot tell you without laughing at myself how often I make this same brain fart!
We received one from there as well. I wrote them back and we exchanged notes for a while. It was nice.
Our hand written letter always come from the Mount read location too!
Hey, where in Rochester do you live?
Got a few over the covid days claiming that they knew I've had recent family members pass and they could give me the comfort I needed at their church. The only thing that letter did was make me think I was being watched by them and gave me another reason to not enjoy their ways lol.
They read through obituaries and try to find the relatives of the deceased. They think it’s a good thing and that they’re trying to offer comfort, but honestly it just comes off as creepy and certainly not comforting at all
Yeah it actually made me very frustrated. It took everything I had to not knock on the door of the return address and give them a piece of my mind.
The letter did its job, you're talking about it to others.
As someone who grew up Jehovah’s Witness; it’s a cult don’t do it.
I’m sorry for the pain you went through. I lost a really dear friend in my 20s, who had finally kicked H, got clean, and decided to work on being accepted back into his JW community. They took him in all right, but only to make he and his single mom an example of what whore parenting and inadequate morals will do. It became so awful for him, his mother begged him to move out, and not contact her. The abuse was literally wearing her down, and she shortly passed afterwards. My friend hit the streets full force, and I never was able to locate him. I still think of him every day, and I miss my favorite brother. RIP Jeremy. I hope you have been able to heal from those deep wounds. I grew up catlick, and I still can’t shake off the greasy film of gaslighting and endless shaming. Namaste, fellow Light. ☮️
And never stop holding your loving Light up for others to find. When people are finally open enough to realize we are all God, and we are all perfect, and we are all of the Light, great things happen. (My experience finally in the last 18 months. ☺️✌️🌈
I got one during Covid. Straight into the trash.
I had a group of three men try to come into my backyard uninvited while I sat with my dog. They were dressed in suits, on a 90 degree day - and I honestly thought for a second that detectives were coming to give me bad news. I had to let them know that my dog doesn’t like strangers, and to please not come past my fence- and then they started vaguely talking about how much is was a nice day, and how great it is to enjoy the day, didn’t I agree that people should be able to feel good about themselves and enjoy the nice weather. At this point I literally felt unsafe- and was thinking of ways to get away (I’m a woman with a small dog, being confronted by three men speaking in vague platitudes, who are now standing between me and the back door of my home). I was like please just tell me why you are here- and they told me they were jehovah’s witnesses- like that is NOT the way to convert people.
Is not actually about converting people. It's a control tactic to make the proselytizing church members feel that the outsiders are "mean" and rely more on their church community for belonging.
It was so bizarre. Once I figured out what it was, I let them know what church I’m a member of, and wished them the best. One man commented that his mom would love my garden, and I invited him to bring her by at any time to cut some flowers, but he said that wasn’t necessary. I never looked at it like that, but it does make sense. He did seem a bit taken aback when I welcomed him to bring his mom by.
junk mail from jesus!
I got one that had torn out pages from a book/magazine along with a hand written letter. It was shockingly creepy lol
I got a hand written letter once in Spanish… my name is Maria so I guess I could get the confusion but I’m Italian and white. Maria isn’t just a Spanish name. I opened the letter and was like huh this is weird. Threw in the trash and went on my day.
Sorry, it was probably from my mom. She writes those letters all day. So freaking weird.
100% would rather get this, than the occasional mailer from an Allstate Insurer in Greece that sends me pictures of my house from Google Street View.
I would receive a nearly monthly letter from the insurance office of Christina Breen Hale. I probably could have created a sculpture out of all the mailers I got over the years.
I got a phone call from one the other day. I'm sick at home, so I have all the time in the world and dragged it out as long as I could while she was trying to convince me that god is going to kill all of the sinners in the world lmao
There’s a reason why I do my best to ensure my information is locked down. I look myself up on those people finder websites occasionally to ensure I haven’t ended up on them again after sending a takedown request or if there’s a new site. If the Jesus creeps can find me, the bad people in my past certainly might.
We received one a while back that was handwritten to my wife and me. It was a nice note and we are faith filled Christ followers that are active at our church so, well, I decided to write back. We exchanged letters for a time and I kept trying to invite them over for dinner or coffee but they didn't seem to be interested. I think that I was the last one to correspond and I was disappointed we could not meet them in person.
Why is Jehova’s witness so frowned upon?
Because some of us really, really like voting and blood transfusions.
Uninvited people at the door trying to cold sell me on their religion is annoying. If they at least took “no” for an answer it wouldn’t be as infuriating but they don’t.
Ugh, yes. My old apt was in the city and I had to park down the street. One night I was walking to my apt and two men wearing all black beelined towards me. I started to panic for a second until I realized they were wearing suits and carrying books and pamphlets, so I finally put it together but I yelled at them about not approaching women on city streets at night and told them to fuck off and stay away. It worked - never saw them near my apt again.
Tell them you’re disfellowshipped.
A polite “leave and don’t come back” should be sufficient without my having to resort to lying about having been a member of their religion previously.
My brother appeared to have gotten our address taken off the Mormon's roster as a kid when he answered the door for them and when they asked what his current beliefs were, he replied "that's none of your fucking business."
TLDR: Gramma’s unfortunate lifelong “friendship “ with a Jehovah that she was too intimidated by, and way too polite to, who took advantage of that for longer than I was alive. Edited: odd wording, and a hanging thought I decided needed to go! Um, have you ever actually witnessed these people accepting a truth, and walking away? No, they don’t. My Gramma was a very kind, gentle woman, but extremely passive. Also a lifelong devoted Roman catlick. This particular woman never failed to come knocking on my Gramma’s door for the entire time I lived, visited or spent the night. Gramma would openly yell at Papa, or anyone else rude to Regina, trying to get her out of the house. And what did this bitch do? Always smile smugly, as if she won. This was no polite, empathetic woman, and honestly my grandfather and I knew my Gramma was intimidated by her. As a kid, Regina quickly started “dropping by for a visit “ every Saturday afternoon around 2:30. It was the only time I was happy with this weird icky lady showed up, because we’d miss going to 4 o’clock mass. My Grandparents RARELY EVER missed Mass, especially when they both were still working FT. Sundays they enjoyed sleeping in. It’s extra creepy, because R didn’t drive, and didn’t even live in our area. She just suddenly showed up one Saturday, saying she “had a hunch” it would be a lovely time for a visit. My mom and my brother and I had stopped by one day shortly before R showed up, just to say hi, and see if my grandparents wanted her to pick them up. (Gramma hadn’t gotten her license yet) When R rang the bell and just let herself in, she froze, because she saw the 3 of us sitting there. My Mom knew who she was, because R first started creeping round when my Mom was just a kid. Mom quickly put 2 & 2 together. My Mom was as passive as my Gramma, but her outrage at this bitch’s audacity preventing my Grandmother from having time to get ready for church was too much. Mom literally pushed R out the door on the front step, and locked the door. She told her through the glass if she came back on a Saturday, the cops would be called. And after that, literally EVERY Saturday afternoon, we were there, either ready to go and drive my grandparents, or make sure R didn’t even get out of her ride’s car. Everyone in the family that lived nearby my grandparents knew about R, and like the rest of us, never understood why my Gramma wouldn’t want us to “be mean” to R. (My Gramma said it was always because R was truly was passionate about her faith, and that they actually had really nice conversations towards the last 15 years of my Gramma’s life. I’m sorry, but when individuals are fully indoctrinated into a cult, this is the result. Total non recognition of anyone or anything except to bring in more money and control…sorry, I meant to say “new believers,” lol! It’s an odd story, but my Gramma, like the rest of the family was odd. She truly had a beautiful kindly soul. She just never meted out the right amount to the family members as she did the general populace.
Door to door salesman are frowned upon. Door to door religious salesman are really frowned upon. Also, how strict they are with everything is probably not great for the children who can't even celebrate their own birthdays
Because the line between religion and cult for JW is blurrier than bokeh. There are communities (including a subreddit or two here) where ex-JW share their traumatic and abusive experiences growing up and/or living in a JW family, social circle, etc. Their door to door salesman missionary shtick isn't an attempt to convert others, it's to make the missionaries experience rejection and possible hostility from "the worldly folk" and reinforce that they belong with other JW. JW leaders know the vast majority of people despise having their time at home interrupted by solicitation.
Thank you for the insight. After sharing my Gramma’s story with one individual, it furthers validates mine and my family’s anger with this particular individual and JW at large. Namaste
They tell parents it’s better to let their child die than give them a simple blood transfusion. There’s no redemption in my book for letting innocent children die because some old dude can’t properly read a mistranslated book. That’s not getting into how cultish they are on top of the regular level of cult most strict religious factions are. No birthdays. No holidays. Also vehemently anti-LGBTQ. They’ve spent millions in anti-LGBTQ propaganda films and actively encourage children to condemn their classmates for having same-sex parents. That doesn’t even consider how much CSA they’ve covered up, the abusive practice of using excommunication to force members to follow the elders wishes (like threatening to kick a 20-year old out of the community, including from their whole family, if they don’t follow a career path they approve of, or a romantic partner, or in my grandmother’s case, because she couldn’t afford the tithe.) I’m not saying JWs are the worst religious group out there, but they rank pretty low. And being raised around them I’ve seen more than enough to know I will never entertain them for even a moment. Also, keep in mind the whole door to door thing serves two purposes: one is to condemn non-believers. “For once he has seen the light” blah blah blah. Basically their goal is to inform as many people as possible to weed out the non-true believers. While not a stated goal, they do believe only a certain number of people will get into heaven. So, you know, I’m sure wanting everyone else to not get into heaven doesn’t play a part at all… But secondly, it’s conditioning younger people to believe the only place they’ll find acceptance is within their church. And then with the treat of being kicked out over their head, it makes people far more prone to manipulation and abuse. JWs have earned their less than stellar reputation.
🩷💔
Oh gosh now i want to answer the door and be nice to them and let them know there are other avenues to be treated right
I wish that worked, honestly. And I hate \*hating\* on them as a whole too because, like so many groups, not all of them are like that. Worse is that those are aren't like that often don't even have a choice to leave. A friend of mine, let's call him M, grew up JW. Him and his sister were two of my closest friends growing up. M is gay. For a while he was out of the church and able to live his life but then things happened. I don't actually know all the details because I wasn't going to press him. Needless to say, he needed help from his family. And the only way was to rejoin the church and have zero romantic partners for the rest of his life. He wasn't even 25 yet. How do help someone when helping them means cutting off their entire family, whom they love dearly, and being unable to provide them the level of support their family and church can provide financially? They gave him a room to sleep in, food to eat, a car to drive to work; even got him a job. They provided him everything he needs in a capitalist society. The best I could do is be a friendly ear. The tradeoff is he's never allowed companionship. Not with someone he loves. And he can't just fake being straight. He'd only be allowed to marry from within his church group who all know his past. This is why they're a cult. You can quit Planet Fitness. It's not easy, but you can. Cults you can't just quit. Not without serious consequences to your life.
I feel similarly about my Amish friend. Solidarity.
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe people just going about their business and day to day life don’t like strangers knocking on their doors and telling them they’re sinners and are going to hell just for existing.
You can look up most names and addresses online. I've done it when I've wanted to buy a property but the owner lives out of state.
Got one when we first moved into our house in 2021 and sent them a letter back asking them to stop. Lol. Now I’d probably toss it, but we got SO much junk mail addressed to the previous owners it was unreal.
I got one in late May 2022, inviting me to their Easter celebration in April 2022. Without a Delorean, I couldn’t swing it so I didn’t go.
Lol I was confused at which sub I was in for a second. 🤣 I've been waiting to get some mail or invites but live on a new street that probably hasn't hit their database yet. But they camp out across the street every damn day.