Like many people who have responded to this thread, I was "born in the truth". My parents were actually in Bethel at the time of my conception, and I was the reason they had to leave. A couple of years later my brother, Michael, came along. When I was younger I really disliked being in a witness family. I dreaded going to meetings and out in service. It was always my brother who was the "good" kid in the family. He ended up getting baptized when he was 12 years old and I still wasn't even a publisher though I was 14 at the time. A few years later, when I was 16, we had to move to the San Diego area. It was soon after that that it finally clicked with me that this was the truth and I had better make a stand, so I became a publisher and finally got baptized on June 30, 1996. Around that time my family, in fact the whole congregation, began having some real problems, and much of the next two years I have really tried to forget. During that period my brother met a girl at school who he started studying with. She eventually became a publisher, but after a while she decided this wasn't for her. My brother disassociated himself and ran away with her. I got really discouraged during this time and almost completely stopped coming to meetings or going out in service. That lasted for a while, even through our move up to the bay area, until, recently, A couple of my cousins in Massachusetts had weddings that, since I was getting really homesick, I decided to attend. While I was there I remember being struck by the love that my relatives had for the truth, and I decided that I had been dormant for far too long. I started reading the Society's publications, going to meetings, and going out in service in earnest again. I can't even imagine now why I ever allowed myself to fall so asleep, and, with Jehovah's help, I hope to never allow that to happen again. So, if you read this far, I'm sorry I bored you with my life-story, but I didn't feel I could answer the question without giving this much information.