For sophomore Lizzy Nguyen, explaining her religion to people can be quite difficult because not everyone understands what her religion is.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in one God, Jehovah, translated from English to Hebrew as a unique name for God. They believe Jehovah is the creator of all things, living and nonliving. Their beliefs have a fair amount of differences and similarities from Christians.

“We take a lot of things from the biblical uses so, we use a lot of the reading and studying from the bible,” Nguyen said. “We use those translations and interpret those in our lives.”

Unlike other faiths, Nguyen does not go to church but rather meetings. Halls are a general area for those who practice the Jehovah’s witness. Nguyen goes to Kingdom Hall every Tuesday and Saturday with others who believe the same things she does.

“There are many halls,” Nguyen said. “What’s special is that each one holds multiple language congregations…I’m in the Vietnamese congregation.”

Following the rules that come with being a Jehovah’s witness can restrict a few general things like holidays. They cannot participate in every pagan holiday or man-made holiday even if it’s at a school event. Sometimes people are negative, she said.

“At school I feel like nobody really respects my personal beliefs,” Nguyen said. “And whenever you opt out of things people tend to judge you for who you are and what you do.”

Nguyen and her two younger siblings have studied the faith for four years with their father. After the first two years that the four family members had been studying their religion, a year later their mother, Helen Nguyen, began to study too.

“Now we do bible studies and meetings every week,” Nguyen’s mother said. “We plan to be baptized next March.”