San Francisco!

Paul had meetings in San Francisco, so on April 30th we took a flight west.  Our first evening was spent exploring Fisherman's Wharf and of course eating clam chowder (some of us) and sourdough bread.

 A highlight of the trip was renting bikes for the morning and riding along the bay and over the Golden Gate Bridge.

 We made it back in time to the Wharf to catch a ferry to Alcatraz Island.  The weather soon turned blustery and cold, but this is a tour that was well worth the time and money spent.  Interesting to learn the history of the prison, but the views were breathtaking!

Part of the walkway up to the prison.

View of the San Francisco skyline 

 Alcatraz Island in the distance as we are returning to San Francisco

 Watching the Sea Lions on Pier 39 was so entertaining!  They started congregating there in 1989 after an earthquake hit San Francisco.  They number in the hundreds and up to 1,700 according to the seasons and food supply available to them.

 On Saturday, while Paul was in meetings, Stephanie, Becca and I hit the Open Air Market along the Wharf.  We tried some expensive apricots and empanadas and other ethnic foods from Argentina. Worth every penny!  I loved smelling the sweet peas in the flower stalls.

 We then bravely drove the rental car across town and walked a trail along the beach.  Beautiful!

 I took this picture to show how steep the hills were that we climbed getting to Lombard Street, but it was a lot steeper than it looks in a photo!

 One of the two windmills at Golden Gate Park

 If you look closely you'll see a small squirrel pausing for my shot on a bumpy, lumpy stump.

Two sisters at the Seven Sisters

 We strolled through Saks Fifth Avenue and gawked at the prices.  Mind bloggling that someone would spend thousands of dollars for what you can pick up at a thrift store or at TJ Max!  Help us solve the mystery as to why Becca's feet seemed to grow when she posed as a mannequin.

 My heart wasn't left in San Francisco...it goes wherever my daughters go, and my sons and my husband go and probably it's with each of you who are taking the time to read this blog.  What a great trip!


Dear Family,                                                          April 29, 2015
 New Mission, New Mission President!

This week has been pretty crazy. I'm emailing so late, because out p day was packed with service, and we were in Sioux Falls all day, then went to Luverne for dinner. Then Tuesday we were in Sioux Falls again all day waiting for interviews with our new president and meeting his wife and learning more about the Omaha mission. I'm now officially part of it. Mine was the very last interview of the day, so it wasn't super long, but both President Weston and his wife are awesome, and it's kinda sad I'll only see them one more time before they go home in July. Last week we were able to meet with Jaime, who is in Luverne, she is one of Jakki's helpers. We taught her the Restoration, and we're hoping to teach her again soon. Mike hasn't been able to meet with us the past few weeks, but hopefully we can get in with him this week. I still don't know a lot about the new mission, but I'm sure we'll continue to learn more in the coming weeks. Hope you have a great week!   

Elder Ehlert

Mom and Dad, thanks for sharing a bit more about your missions. I will definitely want to hear more about them when I get home, and I think it would be cool to have a night to go through everyone's mission pictures in our family and talk a bit about some of the experiences, successes, good times, challenges, anything. That would be cool for me to relate my mission experience to everyone else in our family who served, even if I did serve in the States. :) As for The Work cd, I have a copy of it on my usb drive, but I don't have a cd. It's good music, and the songs are pretty inspirational. I'm glad you got to hear some of them.