My classmates were not exactly what most people would call the wrong type. For the most part, they all wanted to go to college, or start a business. They wanted to be rich and famous when they grew up. They all loved holidays and would beg me to come to their birthday parties. These were the reasons they were the wrong crowd.

I liked these kids fine. They never made fun of me, even when I did show up at their homes. They would even tolerate me conducting studies with them. They did however bring up more questions I couldn't answer and encouraged me to look into their religion.

I have been told countless times that Jehovah's organization is the only one source of truth and could withhold any test. God's word was the truth and could be proven. I figured if that was the case, then what would it hurt if I investigated other religions. I asked my mom about different religions. She would only say they were all from Satan and I shouldn't ask anymore.

That was unsettling for me. I went ahead and researched things on my own. I would read books in the school library. I would wake up extra early on Sunday and watch religious broadcasting and order the free material. I always got the mail first, so I wasn't worried about my mom getting it.

I evaluated these religions by JW doctorine. For the most part, if they even mentioned trinity, I wrote it off as definately not the true religion. That narrowed my curiousity to The Worldwide Church of God with H W Armstrong. The beliefs were so close to the Witnesses, that I started to think maybe these people were right.

My mom inspected my room one day while I was out. When I got home, she told me to go to the basement, we had to talk. She had tears in her eyes. I thought someone had died. Then I saw all of my contraband on the table. All the stuff I hid under my mattress was discovered. She made me promise that I would destroy all of this demonic material. I had to burn it to make sure the demons inside the material wouldn't come out to harm us. She made me promise, no matter what, even if she were to leave the "truth", even if I were being tortured, I would never leave the "truth". She talked about how the brave brothers and sisters in Malawai were being tortured to make them turn away from the "truth". How they had people drag them out of their homes at night and would kill their parents in front of the children to make the kids turn away. They would even torture the children by tearing off their finger and toenails, or beating them, or stabbing them and leaving them tied to ground near wild animals. These people are standing strong for Jehovah. The least I could do is be that strong. I had to promise her. I did.

I was also told that I would be going to a new school in grade seven. She said I must be strong in the "truth" and arranged for me to study with a sister once a week during the summer. She chose Sister Ortez. We were there everyday anyway.

In spite of what was going on between her husband and me. In spite of the fact that the summer of 1978 brought on the movie release of "Grease" which inspired all of us kids to want to be famous singers and dancers. We loved that movie so much, we would stay in the theater from early morning until late afternoon for a few weeks. We had it memorized and would mimic it. In spite of the fact that I had questions about the organization. I made a promise to my mom to never stray from the "truth". I knew she loved me and I didn't want to disappoint her.

The summer was fun, scary, confusing, and made me really uncertain about life. What was worse, I would not see my friends from school. The ones I knew who would go to the new school with me were not in my class. We were among the first group of kids to be bussed to this all white, mostly Catholic neighborhood. They were intergrating that school and the people there were not happy about it.