Возвещать Евангелие Царства

Начало следующего учебного года совпало со моим безмерным желанием начать проповедовать из дома в дом. Истина была столь очевидна и конец столь близок, что я испытывал великое рвение соработничать в жатве душ.

Августин заметил мне, что прежде мне следовало пойти в Зал Царства, чтобы освоиться со средой. Более того, он убедил меня, что если я не буду регулярно посещать собрания, я не смогу начать своего дела.

Этого я не предвидел, и со страхом спрашивал себя, что скажут мои родители, если я стану ходить на собрания. Но, по правде говоря, они оказались довольно терпимыми как в то время, так и в последующие годы, хотя и не одобряли моего решения.

Зал Царства

I remember the morning I went to the Palomeras-Unification Kingdom Hall in Madrid for the first time. The meeting started very early and I did not wake up in time; when Augustine came for me, I was still in bed. Very embarrassed, I dressed as quickly as possible, and we set off, walking as fast as we could to be in time for the meeting.

It took about half an hour or maybe a little more to walk from me to the Kingdom Hall, and it took almost ten minutes to climb a rather steep climb. I remember that despite our rapid pace and rapid heartbeat, I experienced a feeling of happiness, lightness and excitement.

The hall was surrounded by small white houses. I don't know if they still exist today.

I went in and sat down in the back, for the meeting had already begun a few minutes before, and the front rows were all occupied.

For the first hour I listened to a sermon by a "Jehovah's Witness" who preached behind a lectern on a dais. He spoke, I remember, of the imminent time of the end, and how Jehovah God would crush sinners at Armageddon and preserve His faithful witnesses for the new paradise here on earth.

At the end of this speech, a hymn was sung, and people took small magazines out of the bags that everyone had. It was The Watchtower. Then began the second part of the meeting, which consisted of question-and-answer study (as in the book The Truth That Brings Eternal Life) to an article from The Watchtower.

First Meetings

The course of the meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses is remarkably similar in both method and purpose, to home studies. Ostensibly, the Bible is studied there, but in reality this is far from the case. In group classes, either in someone's home or at the Kingdom Hall, a chapter from a book by Jehovah's Witnesses was studied. In midweek meetings, the first hour we were taught to preach using the publications of the "witnesses," and the second hour we studied the Theocratic Ministry Bulletin according to the same system. On Sundays, the first hour we listened to talks that repeated the outline of the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) emblazoned with several Bible texts, and the second hour we listened to The Watchtower. In other words, of the five hours we spent in meetings during the week, four were directly devoted to studying their publications, and the fifth was indirectly devoted to the same thing. Since the "witness" had to study all these materials first, and then spend time going from house to house conducting classes there, he physically did not have time to figure out how true what he was taught was, and gradually he fell under the increasing influence of this propaganda.

At the end of the meeting, several people came up to me. They greeted me and asked if I was following the classes, what book I was studying, who exactly I was studying with. I tried to ask them questions about the sermon, but they told me that I should ask these questions to the person with whom I was studying. At that moment, Augustine came up and led me out of there to escort me home.

From house to house