Real Life Fundie Encounters: Part 5

[meowfundiecatz]

19 hours ago, Briefly said:

The pictures you posted, @Marmion, are exactly what I saw several weeks ago.  The hairstyles, dress style, everything was exact.

The FLDS have spread across the whole USA, ever since they began evicting them for not paying--IIRC--$100 a month to the UEB trust, which is now run exclusively by "apostates." AKA former FLDS members. Warren Jeffs has made it very clear that members aren't to pay anything, since the land and homes on it belong to God and are "Zion." So lots of families (women and children) have gone where ever people will help them or if the FLDS owns property in the area.

I formerly lived near a small FLDS "homestead" style compound. I would drive to work and see the women out every early pruning fruit trees or in the garden working. They also had daughters, but I never saw the men or boys.

A recent fundie encounter of mine was an Amish daughter and mother shopping at a local thrift store. Apparently earlier in the week an Amish woman came in and bought 110 books, as they were 10 cents each.

[Marmion]

5 hours ago, meowfundiecatz said:

 

A recent fundie encounter of mine was an Amish daughter and mother shopping at a local thrift store. Apparently earlier in the week an Amish woman came in and bought 110 books, as they were 10 cents each.

Yes , the Amish are always looking for good bargains . But also , they will buy up merchandize  to resell in their salvage stores  . My family , on nearly a weekly basis will buy goods at discounted prices at such Amish run stores .  And , I have noticed items sold in their stores which the Amish themselves would not use , such as CDs , DVDs , and hair dye , for example .  So if you ever see any Amish buying up in bulk items that you wouldn't think that Amish would be interested in , chances are that's why .

 

[smittykins]

That’s interesting.  I didn’t know they ran such stores.

[meowfundiecatz]

5 hours ago, Marmion said:

Yes , the Amish are always looking for good bargains . But also , they will buy up merchandize  to resell in their salvage stores  . My family , on nearly a weekly basis will buy goods at discounted prices at such Amish run stores .  And , I have noticed items sold in their stores which the Amish themselves would not use , such as CDs , DVDs , and hair dye , for example .  So if you ever see any Amish buying up in bulk items that you wouldn't think that Amish would be interested in , chances are that's why .

 

We are only  about an hour away from an Amish salvage store. Get this, the town of the store is surrounded by Amish and have Amish in the town. This past election, the town finally legalized alcohol--yep it was a prohibition town in 2019.

[Marmion]

7 hours ago, meowfundiecatz said:

We are only  about an hour away from an Amish salvage store. Get this, the town of the store is surrounded by Amish and have Amish in the town. This past election, the town finally legalized alcohol--yep it was a prohibition town in 2019.

That is strange , considering that the Amish themselves are not opposed to drinking liquor . https://www.amish365.com/alcohol-and-the-amish/    Also , as a general rule , the Amish tend not to involve themselves in political matters , or vote , by and large .  http://amishamerica.com/do-amish-vote/  , https://www.amish365.com/amish-voting/  

[meowfundiecatz]

I think there wasn't enough English to get a vote that would pass. But I've learned there are other areas near me that are no alcohol areas. It's seems maybe to be more unique to my geographical area. I am in western KY now. No where near to the Naugs but close enough to know the area they live is so full of drugs. But that is the same as our county, we're on the "good" side of our county.

[PennySycamore]

I may have seen a fundie at Target today -or maybe not.  This older woman was wearing a long skirt, almost ankle length, slides on her feet and what I thought at first was a head covering.  I think though that she may just wearing a scarf covering up some booby pins.  If she'd not gone in the opposite direction, I could have gotten a better look.  

[Briefly]

20 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

I may have seen a fundie at Target today -or maybe not.  This older woman was wearing a long skirt, almost ankle length, slides on her feet and what I thought at first was a head covering.  I think though that she may just wearing a scarf covering up some booby pins.  If she'd not gone in the opposite direction, I could have gotten a better look.  

Sometimes it is hard to tell, especially if it's an older woman.  I have often made a point of walking down an aisle towards someone that might be fundie and smiling at them.  Usually, they don't smile back although when I had very long hair and if I happened to be in a long denim skirt (I have a couple, I just like them although I don't think they date to our attempting fundy days), I did get a smile and sometimes a "hello".  I don't intend to stalk anyone, I'm just curies sometimes and that's what I do.  Not always.

[Marmion]

1 hour ago, Briefly said:

Sometimes it is hard to tell, especially if it's an older woman.  I have often made a point of walking down an aisle towards someone that might be fundie and smiling at them.  Usually, they don't smile back although when I had very long hair and if I happened to be in a long denim skirt (I have a couple, I just like them although I don't think they date to our attempting fundy days), I did get a smile and sometimes a "hello".  I don't intend to stalk anyone, I'm just curies sometimes and that's what I do.  Not always.

The fundies around where I live , if Amish are considered to be fundamentalist , are much friendlier than that . They will usually wave as they pass me in their buggies , while I am out on a stroll .  But perhaps when a particular cult is not trying to love bomb other people , they are not so warm , and outgoing .  P.S. I myself have noticed how much Conservative Holiness / Pentecostal sects seem to favor denim .  Not only will the men wear denim trousers , but the women will likewise wear denim maxi skirts , some of which they make by hand out of used blue jeans .  

[Marmion]

I feel that I just have to get this off my chest , although it might seem controversial to some .  I was just in Middlefield , shopping , and eating out . At one of the stores , Refound Treasures , I saw what had initially appeared to be a family of African-Americans . But then , all of the sudden , some white woman told the oldest girl , a teenager , to sit down in one of the couches , and not move , in one of the sternest voices I have ever heard . Turned out that apparently this white couple had adopted a bunch of black children . Now I am not sure if some fundies are using adoption as a loophole to get around abolition , or if they just tend to treat all of their children in the same abrupt manner , regardless of race ,  but I found it to be quite off putting , just the same . The teenager seemed like such a nice sweet natured girl too .  So I don't think that she off all people should have been treated so harshly by the woman whom is supposed to be her adoptive mother , or legal guardian . 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

Ugh. Why did answer the door? I usually don't open the door to strangers, but when they kept knocking, I opened it just now. Jehovah's Witnesses, of course.  I got rid of them (2 ladies) fairly quickly, but now they might keep coming back. I'm not good at the type of brush-off that some FJers have described; the kind that makes proselytizers run and never come back. I guess I can go back to ignoring knocking. Bleah.

ETA--This is the pamphlet they left:

Spoiler

Choice #4: We can find the answers to life's big questions on FJ! (Okay, realistically we can find information to examine, and research ideas, and then apply our critical thinking skills.)

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?
ETA

[Marmion]

38 minutes ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

Ugh. Why did answer the door? I usually don't open the door to strangers, but when they kept knocking, I opened it just now. Jehovah's Witnesses, of course.  I got rid of them (2 ladies) fairly quickly, but now they might keep coming back. I'm not good at the type of brush-off that some FJers have described; the kind that makes proselytizers run and never come back. I guess I can go back to ignoring knocking. Bleah.

ETA--This is the pamphlet they left:

  Hide contents

Choice #4: We can find the answers to life's big questions on FJ! (Okay, realistically we can find information to examine, and research ideas, and then apply our critical thinking skills.)

 

For reference , here is advice from an ex-JW on how to best deal with Jehovah's Witnesses  .   

 

 

[CarrotCake]

There are not a lot of JW here but once I had one coming to my door. I had quite an interesting discussion with him about religion but I moved a few weeks after, I wonder if the next residents were stalked after that ? 

[BlackberryGirl]

BlackberryGrankids 2 and 3 and I were just out on the front porch enjoying a glorious fall afternoon here in our little village of Anatevka, sorry  got carried away, when down the street came an Amish wagon, single horse clopping away.  Everyone waved, the baby was squealing “ puppies!!”, 

[Longhairedheathen]

Growing up I was always under the impression that Amish were very friendly and talkative from the couple of times my family went up north. We travel, my  dad would go hunting for a family  and be invited to eat with them. We spend hours with them, maybe spend the night.

Come to find out apparently there were Amish in Texas at one point and my dad help the community in the 80s because he spoke Texas German.  He find the families and just check in with them. It is funny because my dad was a long haired hippie covered in tattoos! 

[Briefly]

5 hours ago, Longhairedheathen said:

Growing up I was always under the impression that Amish were very friendly and talkative from the couple of times my family went up north. We travel, my  dad would go hunting for a family  and be invited to eat with them. We spend hours with them, maybe spend the night.

Come to find out apparently there were Amish in Texas at one point and my dad help the community in the 80s because he spoke Texas German.  He find the families and just check in with them. It is funny because my dad was a long haired hippie covered in tattoos! 

I think that the Amish are like everybody else, some of them are friendly and accepting while some of them are not friendly are are judgemental.  But there is also something that not everybody is aware of:  quite a few of them run puppy mills.  And they are some of the worst ones out there.

[Marmion]

Speaking of Amish , this afternoon , yet again , I went with my family to Middlefield , Ohio .  This time it was to a crafts fair . Wouldn't you know it , the Amish are now getting into MLMs  . This one young Amish woman , who got my mother to enter a drawing  , was selling Thirty-One Gifts  .  And then I noticed another Amish young lady who was dealing in Doterra  . She even had a dispenser running , emitting the vapor around her . As others have mentioned here , evangelicals , apparently including what appeared to be mostly Beachy Amish  , have increasingly been getting involved in MLM business schemes .  https://www.freejinger.org/topic/26974-why-evangelicals-are-drawn-to-mlm-article/  

[MarblesMom]

On 9/10/2019 at 7:59 PM, PennySycamore said:

she may just wearing a scarf covering up some booby pins.

Love this!  Booby pins in the hair cannot be NIKE, right?  

[Longhairedheathen]

Turned in my fundie co-worker to HR because she repeatedly used the wrong pronouns, slurs and ignored patient's healthcare concerns. 

Now she crying persecution and HR isn't going for it. 

 

[Briefly]

8 hours ago, Longhairedheathen said:

Turned in my fundie co-worker to HR because she repeatedly used the wrong pronouns, slurs and ignored patient's healthcare concerns. 

Now she crying persecution and HR isn't going for it. 

 

Good for you, if she was even using the wrong pronouns and slurs then she should have been reported.  But if she was also ignoring healthcare issues, then she is dangerous and has no business dealing with people at all.

[AnnC]

Pronoun use can be tricky.  I was a training session where one of the attendees helped us all build that habit.  It is more common in community planning settings, so i get lots of practice.. but I still get messed up sometimes.   

The folks who just don't try, or respond with eye rolls or huffs... they are the ones creating the drama.  People have been telling people their favored form of address for a very long time...(Ms., Miss, Mrs. Dr. etc)

 

[Briefly]

Well crap!  I typed a paragraph and then my computer ate it!  Take two:

I went to the Tulsa State Fair yesterday with the Briefly daughter and her boyfriend. As usual, there were booths for some of the local church groups.  One is very much "the only way to God is them" and they have things similar to Chick Tracts to hand out. They have not had fresh material for a few years, and they had almost nobody going up to their booth.  The JW's were handing magazines out to everybody that walked past, she grabbed a couple but didn't get a chance to look at them. I will, the next time I see her.  She has quite a collection. There was a church group, teens and early 20's year olds I think and they were handing out bottled water to everybody. The bottles had personalized sticker-type labels with their church name, I was going to keep one back to bring home but I don't know what happened to it. There was also a very large group of Mormons (they had the name tags so we know who they were) and they were standing in the middle of an aisle. They were all discussing video games and Zelda seemed to be a huge part of their conversation.  That was kind of odd.

[smittykins]

That reminds me:  During my brief time studying with the JWs in the late 90s, I was at my former coworker’s house, and at one point, her kids decided to play Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. I was surprised that she would let them have kind of game.  She did mention that “That’s not going to be allowed in the New System.”

[Marmion]

6 hours ago, smittykins said:

That reminds me:  During my brief time studying with the JWs in the late 90s, I was at my former coworker’s house, and at one point, her kids decided to play Goldeneye 007 on the Nintendo 64. I was surprised that she would let them have kind of game.  She did mention that “That’s not going to be allowed in the New System.”

That reminds me of this time when I had some friends that were Jehovah's Witnesses , when I was a teenager .  They would largely come to my house just to play with my video games .  Some of the video games I had , being I was part of an evangelical sect was from a Nintendo knock off , called Wisdom Tree .  For example , Spiritual Warfare  , among others .  Looking back , I suppose that it might be sort of funny how a Nazarene , me , ended up befriending  Jehovah's Witness kids , and sharing an element of my evangelical subculture with them .   

 

19 hours ago, Briefly said:

There was also a very large group of Mormons (they had the name tags so we know who they were) and they were standing in the middle of an aisle. They were all discussing video games and Zelda seemed to be a huge part of their conversation.  That was kind of odd.

Mormons huh ?  Haven't you ever heard of Studio C  ?  Yeah , Mormons tend to be big Sci-fi / fantasy nerds , for whatever reason . Cases in point .  

 

 

[Briefly]

Yes, @Marmion I have heard of Studio C. But this group was just acting odd. They seemed to be deliberately blocking the aisle and they were talking much louder than one would expect even given the noise level.  Now that I've thought about it, it's possible that they thought that people passing by would be interested in the conversation and join in - thereby giving them new people to proselytize to.