Monday, March 7, 2022

HI AGAIN - Calarcá, Colombia

Ok so I'm writing again because why not, I have time before lunch. Ok so first things first, very fast review of the week, because I'm sending this when lunch gets here. Ok it's here

Lol it's actually was ready if I have more time later I'll write more later, maybe, but here's a summary before everyone else finishes lunch.

Me desmayè, nos robaron, cambios, medellin, uff carisimo, metrocable, el hueco, ey mono/gringo
De nada :)

OK where were we, ok poco a poco
Primero, me desmayè means I fainted, for those of you who didn't put it in to Google translate already. Don't worry it wasn't because I hit my head or anything, I just had a really big head rush. Yep, I fainted because I'm tall. No normal you don't full on faint when you have a head rush but that time I did. :) my hip hurt for a bit after because I fell on it, and we lost 1.5 mugs (one only lost the handle) but over all ok. I think in the end my companion elder Mendez was more shook than I was lol.
Nos robaron, we got robbed. Yup. I lost almost all of the money that the mission gives us to live because we happened to take it out of the ATM that day so that was fun. At least it wasn't too bad, I didn't even know that we got robbed until after. The way the robbery went down was like this. We (me and the LZs) were waiting for my companion as he was coming back from a medical appointment in Medellín. The zone leaders didn't want to go all the way to the terminal because they had appointments that they wanted to go to. So they had elder Mendez get off the bus at a random roundabout, dark, in the middle of nowhere, next to their appointment, in a dangerous neighborhood. All good so far. A guy comes up at this point and asks us where a park is, the park doesn't exist but the LZs start contacting the guy anyway because ya. The guy then says that he, and another guy that just showed up, are part of a cartel and that they think that we are going to sell drugs to someone. So they need to look over our phones to make sure we aren't doing that. The lzs say ok that's fine and give their phone to them so I do the same. Next they ask one of the lzs how much cash he has on him. He says he has about 170.000 COP on him, the truth because we took out our money that day, so they told us all to take our our money and show them how much we have. They then had to take that too so that they could "make sure that it was real or something. Still not sure on this one, they were using lots of slang and talking about drugs. As a person who learned Spanish from the Book of Mormon, I don't know a lot of slang or drug words jajaja. After that they told us to take a lap around the block while they checked our stuff and then when we got to the other side, they would give us our stuff back. I started going around the loop but after like 10 steps my companion, who had arrived at this point but didn't get robbed, starts saying that the lzs are dumb and how could they fall for that. I being the clueless gringo that I am at times, asked what he was talking about. That's when I found out that the people weren't actually nice cartel people making sure that we weren't invading their territory, and that we just got robbed. :D
Ok the rest ate faster, cambios means changes directly, but for missionaries, it means transfers. This time I actualy transfered! A little sad leaving Calarcá after 6 months, but cool overall. Ahora, I'm in Medellín! My new area is called buenos aires.
Uuf, carisimo = it's expensive here. Not crazy expensive because it's not a huge touristic place, but much more expensive than my last area, think tiny town vs giant city.
Metrocable means, I'm really not sure, but it's kind of like a ski lift. Our area is literally the side of a mountain. So at times we have to take the metrocable so we don't take 2 hours walking up the side of a mountain. Super cool.
El hueco, the hole directly but it just means downtown where everything is a copy and super cheap. Don't go in ropa de proselitismo or alone/without a Latino or 100% you will get robbed. Still half a chance, but oh well. It was fine when we went.
Ey mono/gringo. What I hear minimum 20 times a day. Gringo is just gringo, I'm used to that. Mono means blond, I'm obviously blond in an area where that is not normal lol. But mono also means monkey. So when someone says that it has a little double meaning. I don't really care, but some how, I only figured out the monkey thing two days ago.
Ok that's it for summary, spiritual thought and shout outs in another email because this is long.
Elder Crenshaw :)


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