Letter February 18, 2008

Where I am stationed may be worse then Camden, New Jersey. Wilmington as a whole is not as bad as Camden, but where I live is undoubtabley worse. My street is the worse street in all of Wilmington. In the past year there have been at least twelve murders that Chantel can remember. My guess is that there have probably been more. I thought it would be funny to count the number of gunshots I heard, but I lost track after the first few hours I have been here. Last Monday was the first day that I heard no gun shots. The average is about five per day. Drug deals happen all the time. I can't walk down the street without seeing a drug deal being made. My area reminds me of something out of Mad Max. It is so very lawless. Cars are beat down and barely run. People usually ride their quads, dirt bikes, and crotch rockets around everywhere. Its quite odd. Cops don't seem to care about hasaling people about riding offroading vehicles in the middle of the city, but then again cops don't seem to exist where I live.
Chantel has become our golden less active. On Tuesday night one of her five baby daddy (I originally told you that she only had two, but I was mistaken) stole her childrens social security numbers and is now using the money that was alloted to the children to sustain his growing drug habit. It was quite sad. Chantel, however, was not about to take it. She's got some soul. She managed to rip off a table leg and stomp out the door. We tried to retain her, but it just wasn't working. She threw both me and elder olsen off. Eventually she calmed down. We later learned that she had beat one of her baby daddy to near death, but he didn't press charges because he was too embarassed. She was in jail for attempted murder when she was twelve. Her uncle raped her and she came back at him with a knife. It was quite interesting. However, since Tuesday she has managed to progress rapidly. She felt as though we were angels sent to stop her from killing her baby daddy. She is now listening to what we say. On Friday she gave up smoking, kicked out her Boyfriend, and broke up with the boyfriend who is in jail. We are beginning to teach her friends and family now. She was going to go to church, but her breaks went out. I was quite sad. Friday the AP's came. Friday was also a landmark day because it was the first time that I got into a door. The AP did most of the work. We taught an eighty year old man named mike. He graciously let us into his house and we taught him the plan of salvation. I was so excited. Then a man came into the house and asked ""who are you."" We said we were the missionaries and then he said, "'no not you that old man sitting and smoking a cigarette in my house.'" It turns out that mike is some crazy homeless man that broke into some guys house. Quite sad actually.