A Lovely Kiwi For Christmas

We’ve had a visitor from far, far away this Christmas season. Brodie Ridler, a close friend and student of my parent’s from New Zealand, has been in Utah on holiday and we’ve been lucky enough to have her with us for a few weeks of her stay. Jonathan gave her a big hug the other night before bed adding the comment, “I can give Brodie a big hug like that because she’s family!”

She truly is.

After spending time with Brodie and hearing her tell stories of my parents (all the Young Single Adults call my parents Mama and Papa Stauff) I’m starting to see how hard it’s going to be for my parents to leave New Zealand. They have family there now, family that will not be happy to see them go.

Brodie and I have been all over the place together. She will even go eat Sushi with me, something that no one else around here will do. Brodie claims that normally she hates to shop, but says she doesn’t mind it with me (I tend to have the affect on people, right Belinda!). It’s a good thing she likes shopping with me because I’ve dragged her to many a store as I’m trying to get ready for Christmas.

Costco was the most fun so far…

Brodie’s mind was blown!

When you stop to think about it and look at Costco from a foreign perspective, it really is an insane place and a pretty accurate representation of American culture (don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing, I mean who needs a box of 60 processed waffles?). In New Zealand there is nothing like Costo (or huge boxes of waffles) to be found.

(We did find this during one of our shopping sprees though. I true gift from heaven. I will never be the same again!)

Brodie is a fairly recent convert to the Church and she loves seeing the temples that dot this state. Her goal is to see all the temples in Utah while she’s here. She’s seen several so far, a few left to go. Her favorite is the Manti temple and she hasn’t seen that one yet, so there may be a road trip in the near future.

Yesterday morning Brodie and I went with Mary Kate (her first time) and Mike to the Timpanogos Temple to do baptisms. It was a neat experience for all of us. As we were driving home (just 4 minutes from the temple to our driveway) Brodie talked about how wonderful it would be to have a temple close enough that you could go to the temple in morning before work or school and then go on with your day, as we were doing. She shook her head and said, “You guys are so lucky!”

It was a much needed reminder for me not to take the close proximity of so many temples for granted. Brodie’s closest temple is a plane ride away.

Brodie has been a great sport as I’ve also dragged her along to Young Women’s activities, Relief Society Christmas dinners, 1st grade class parties and the like. She’s been so gracious as I’ve introduced her to all my friends. She even got to meet my neighbor, little baby Nila. They took to each other right away.

Everyone loves Brodie…her Kiwi accent, her personality, and her single status. I can’t tell you how many times someone has asked if they could set her up with a cousin, a brother or a friend, but I think Brodie’s heart is somewhere in Samoa. :-)

Last night Brodie and I had tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert (thanks to a very kind connection of my parent’s). We brought the family along with us to kill time before the concert began. It was a beautiful night at Temple Square, not too crowded, not too cold.

The boys were in rare form though, they made certain to put on a good show for Brodie providing her with the opportunity to seriously ponder over the question of whether on not she wants to have children in the future. After their behavior last night, I think she’s undecided about that at the moment. Can’t say that I blame her. Brodie is certainly patient!

The concert was peaceful though. Brodie confirmed that enjoying the concert was the highlight of her holiday so far. She was in heaven, as was I. Nothing brings the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas quite like music and stories about the Savior or Richard Elliot’s organ solos, WOW! The Mormon’s brought it again, along with Nathan Gunn and Jane Seymour who where fantastic!

We’ve loved having Brodie here, she will certainly be a friend for life.

Now I have another reason to wish that New Zealand wasn’t so far away.