Monday

So Grandpa Bob and Grandma Delsa have a great tradition of eating with the missionaries the night before the missionaries return home and at the dinner, Grandma Delsa asks the missionaries to share one humorous story and one "core" story from their missions.  It's a great tradition with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Delsa arguing over when the two stories should be shared.  But for those who doubted, Grandma Delsa rules the table and her word is law.

On Monday night, we were invited to the "leavers" dinner with Sister Scott (returning to Sydney) and Sister Jones (to Birminham, UK).   It was a great dinner, with great conversation.  And Abram only managed to say something stupid twice.  That's actually pretty good considering how little sleep he had.  Of course, Delsa was nice enough to pretend at breakfast this morning (at 5 am, thank you, Max) that nothing had happened.  Bob, of course, appeared thoroughly amused by Delsa's forgetfulness and quickly identified the times when Abram had said stupid stuff.   (For those of you interested in knowing what Abram's faux pas were: he waxed long on reaping the benefits of disobedient companions and from taking days off when you're working with two companions instead of one.)

But, the best part of the dinner was watching Abram's response to Sister Scott's core story. Poor Abram, and poor, poor Sister Scott.  Sister Scott is telling her core story and every time she looks at Abram, his eyelids have all but completely closed off.  Abram's eyes are open just enough to see when Sister Scott is looking at him -- and each time she'd look his way, he'd try so hard to open his eyes and give that lovely smile of his.  He would get his eyes about half-way open and give the most forced half-smile you'd ever see.  It was so painful to see Abram like that, but luckily Sister Scott understood.  In fact, Sister Scott gave a pretty funny impression of Abram at the airport for Grandma Delsa.  She got quite a kick out of it. 

While Abram and Kristin were at the Leavers dinner, the kids were with Elder and Sister Smith (a retired couple from Alberta) who graciously offered to play with the kids.  Aviva was quite the charmer and made two quick friends.  Max was still adjusting to the fact that he's 2 years old and in the midst of the most terrible of two's and managed to make the Smiths really like Aviva.