PI - Day 4

Eric playing Sodoku on the bus ride, I got him hooked on it!


We spent most of our 4th day traveling back to civilization. We caught an early bus so that we could make it to San Jose, Nueva Ecija by lunch time. When we arrived in San Jose we met up with Kuya Romel, a good friend that cooked for the missionaries during the time Eric was assigned in San Jose. It didn’t take too much time of wandering the streets for Eric to get oriented with where we were and remember where Romel’s house was.



Romel prepared a delicious curry complete with mangoes and all. He was cool enough to let us leave our stuff at his house while we hopped a trike and went out to see some of the members Eric was close with.

Sonia was the member that Eric wanted to see the most, but unfortunately she has moved and none of her neighbors know where she’s gone. It was a bit disappointing for him, but on our way back into town we noticed the gates of the chapel were open, and decided to stop by and see who was there. As we walked into the foyer, Eric was immediately recognized and called by name by the Fernandez family! They had had a party there celebrating the anniversary of the Relief Society and were cleaning up when we got there. It was really cool to sit and chat with members that remembered Eric and to catch up on how their lives had changed since he last saw them 5 years ago.

We later made our way back to Romel’s to pick up our stuff and head to Cabanatuan, about an hour and a half away by Jeepney (a very packed one at that).

They have spaghetti on thier McDonalds menu, so weird!

After the long, hot, sweaty, crowded ride, we needed some re-fueling. We stopped at the McDonalds in Cab and ordered some ice cream that was so small it looked like it belonged in a Happy Meal. Then we were off to the Greenland Leisure Suites Hotel where we crashed and enjoyed the air-conditioned room, hot shower, and cable TV. This was definitely the nicest hotel yet…..