Letter from September 9th

Hey family,

                We had made it, we were in the crypts. We were finally among friends from the GD. As we were walking around we saw some people. They smelt like weed and you know they had been smoking just minutes before. We talked to a couple of them then went with our friend to "the jungle". We ran though the jungle to see one more person. After we had talked to them we started to leave. On our way, we saw a stray dog just standing there. As we looked at him and he looked at us we decided we only had one option, we walked slowly as we tried not to be noticed. We then realized the dog was chained up and we were fine. We made our way back though the jungle and into the main part of the crypts. We said bye to our friends and started off to the grove. When we got to the grove we parked our car and started to walk to the store. As we were walking we saw members of all sorts of mobs. We avoided being shot even though you could see the guns these guys were carrying. We made it to the store and purchased some drinks. We then left and went home. We made it home safely. As we went to bed our house smelt strongly of weed and we knew that the person below us had been smoking.

 

  My week has been boring. On Monday we played volleyball with lots of the missionaries in the surrounding areas. Then on Tuesday I went to Frayser and was companions with Elder Armstrong. The story above is what we did. It was lots of fun. On Wednesday we went to breakfast with Elder Jackson and Elder Anderson. Then we exchanged back and  biked around the rest of the day. The rest of the week was very slow and we biked around and only a few people let us in and we had fun biking but now we are really tired.

 

          That is about it for my week. I am glad you are all doing good and having fun at work and school. Keep up the good work and know I love y'all

                Elder Talbert

Clarification from Joseph's letter the following week:

          The GD (Gangster Disciples) is one of the big gangs in Memphis. We were at an apartment complex called the Crypts. Part of the complex is referred to as "the Jungle". It is the more dangerous part of the Crypts. "The Grove" is another part of town that has one of the highest murder rates per capita in all the US. It was fun and I was perfectly safe.