Jehovah’s Witnesses in City of Vision this weekend; patience is theme

We can all use a little more patience, wouldn’t you agree?

And that’s the basic theme of the Jehovah’s Witnesses annual convention in Rio Rancho this weekend (June 2-4), with thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses back in the City of Vision for a “global” event after a three-year absence.

The 2023 “Exercise Patience” Convention will be held in the Rio Rancho Events Center, known as Santa Ana Star center in 2019, the last time the convention was held in Rio Rancho. After resuming smaller in-person meetings and public ministry in 2022, this summer marks the first time they will gather at much larger regional events around the world since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, which led to conventions held virtually.

“Providing the program in a virtual format helped us see how we can maintain our joy, build our faith and pursue peace despite conditions we face. The value also came by giving priority to the health and safety of our global brotherhood,” said Tory Jaramillo, spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses. “There is a deep feeling of unity when we come together in song that you can’t experience over a virtual platform — I look forward to being reunited with friends and to see their smiles.

“The theme itself suggests to me that this quality of patience can be strengthened on a personal level,” Jaramillo said. “Today we see so much hatred and unrest because people are wanting real change to the issues we are all facing. If that desired change was guaranteed to become a reality, it would absolutely be worth it to exercise the needed patience to see it happen.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses have been holding public conventions in stadiums, arenas, convention centers and theaters around the world for more than 100 years.

Some 6,000 conventions will be held worldwide as part of the 2023 “Exercise Patience” Convention series. In the U.S., where 708 conventions in 35 different languages are to be held in 144 host cities. In Rio Rancho, six convention sessions explore the quality of patience, highlighting its modern-day relevance through scriptural examples. A live baptism will be performed following the Saturday morning session, with a prerecorded drama featured in two parts during the Saturday and Sunday afternoon sessions.

Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses filled hotels and restaurants; they came from Arizona and Colorado, as well as from throughout New Mexico.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are known for their door-to-door preaching, distributing literature such as “The Watchtower” and “Awake!,” and for refusing military service and blood transfusions. They consider the use of God’s name vital for proper worship.

Rio Rancho has two Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations, Congregation Mountain View and Congregation Idalia, and there are others in the metro area — on the West Side, as well as in Bernalillo, Moriarty and Los Lunas.

They hold meetings for worship twice each week. At the meetings, open to the public, they examine what the Bible says and how they can apply its teachings in life. Jehovah’s Witnesses strive to adhere to the form of Christianity that Jesus taught and that his apostles practiced.

An estimate of the economic benefit for Rio Rancho during the convention would be about $80 per attendee for each day of the convention.

“We estimate to have an audience of about 5,500 for the first convention (English) and about 3,000 for the second Convention (Spanish),” he said, with that Spanish Convention here June 9-11.

For more information, visit jw.org.