Jesus didn't have a refrigerator

Ever since returning from the mission, I have searched for those missionary moments in my life.  I always said while in the field that I would be one of those members that is always inviting the missionaries over, that I would talk about the gospel with everyone, always have pass-along cards in my back pocket and that every friend I made that wasn't a member would hear the discussions... Apparently, while on a mission, I completely lost touch with reality.  You can't just talk about the gospel with everyone, expect every one to listen... can you?

This summer I made a good friend named Andrew.  He was working in Alaska for the summer and was just as sarcastic as I was.  We made for a hilarious pair, and if you didn't know us, you'd think we hated each other. (Note, he answers my phone calls with some sort of derogatory comment, 'Hey jerk' or 'What up loser') We went hiking one night in July and of course our conversation turned to religion.  I was pretty excited because since living in Utah, I haven't had the opportunity to have many missionary experiences.  I invited him to church, he accepted.  We went to church, the missionaries jumped all over him, and like the ex marine that he is, told them to give him their number and when he wanted to talk, he'd call them.  Gotta love it.

Andrew is the one with the hat

Every since then we have joked about him getting baptized so we could get married. He calls me about once every two weeks and we catch up on life and what is going on.  Since Alaska, he has moved back to D.C. and got a job with the military which has something to do with weapons. (I should know exactly what it is...he has told me thousands of times, but I always just say, 'Ya ya you are selling guns and weapons of mass distruction to Iran, I get it.) Every now and again we will start talking about WHY we couldn't get married or WHY things wouldn't work out with us.  He always poses situations and all other sorts of questions to try and trip me up or just tease me.  A few days ago we had a pretty amazing conversation.

It started out pretty normal, teasing me about how Jesus drank wine and that it couldn't be grape juice because they had no way to keep it from fermenting.  But then it turned to situations like, what if we got married in the temple and then I just go back to being baptist, or why don't we just get sealed after I die. (I realize while typing these that he and it sounds like we are super serious, it really is all in jest, we have never even so much as held hands)  This line of questioning led me to basically teach the first two missionary lessons to him over the phone.  I didn't say anything all that amazing.  We have talked about prophets before, we have talked about baptism before.  I told him about the plan of salvation, how this life is a trial, and how part of it was us choosing to do the right things.  I explained that Christ had always sent prophets, I talked about priesthood authority...it was a good conversation.

At the very end, I knew I wanted to just bare testimony, but I also knew that spewing on for another 10 minutes would be too much, so I simply said, 'Andrew, I want you to know that I know this is true.  Not because I saw an angel or anything amazing like that. I have prayed about it and I continue to pray about it and every time, I feel like it is right.'  He thanked me, said he had a lot to think about and that next time he would let the mormons in when they knocked on his door.  But he made sure to finish by letting me know that Jesus didn't have a refrigerator.

Reasons why I love my family

Me: Hey so and so is getting married!
Joree: To a girl?
Me: Ha ha yes he is getting married to a girl
Joree: Oh good...


Jamie commenting on this picture on Facebook:

Jamie Fairbanks 

There goes Jody, tryin to fix her computer with a knife! Silly Jody that never works!

 This one was good too

Jamie Fairbanks 

This is our "special friend" we call him Steve!

about an hour ago · Report

Jody Mac 

Hahahaha, Jamie I was going to tag him, but now I can't! I was making fun of him cuz he can't cut in a straight line.

Just a friendly reminder

I was in class today and they read a really awesome quote that I loved enough to write down. ( A pretty rare thing for me now a days...the words SENIORITIS is an understatement in my life right now) We went and did visits this evening with the Relief Society Presidency.  I thought to add the quote to a note that I was writing to a sister.  (We write notes to everyone we visit just letting them know we love them)  She text me and told me she was having some family troubles and that she needed that quote more than I could have ever realized.  I love moments like that.

When troubles come along–illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation–he (man) is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing he means to make of us. -C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Not a word about love

I get a little scared sometimes when I think about the future.  Talking to my mom tonight, she asked me what I was going to do after I graduate in December.  My answer? 'I don't know mom, I try not to think about it yet because its a long way off and it scares me to think about.'  That might be a bad attitude, but it is the one I am choosing to have because it helps me not despair because I am not exactly where I thought I would be at 26.


I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple on Friday with my best friend Hillary. It was GORGEOUS! I absolutely loved (oops did I just say that?) it.  She and I sat in the celestial room whispering about thoughts and things that had been troubling us about where we are and where we want to be.  It was good to talk to her, and it was good to be in the celestial room when we did it because it felt like we were able to speak freely about goals and thoughts and worries.


As we were sitting there, a talk popped into my head that I heard a few years back.  I remember it well because at the time, I really needed to hear it, and as I remembered it I realized that I really needed to hear it again.  It is a talk from October 2007 conference by Spencer J. Codie entitled Claim the Exceeding Great and Precious Promises.  In the talk, Elder Condie talked about the promises that we have been afforded here in this life, and the struggles of seeing them from afar and feeling that they are never going to come.  He uses the analogy of the story of Rachel, a beloved daughter of God, who's greatest desire was only to serve her husband Jacob in giving him children.  How she must have felt seeing her sister and everyone around her baring children and by no fault of her own not being able to have that experience.  At one point, Rachel goes to her husband and tells him, 'Give me children, or else I die.'Elder Condie ends his talk with one of the most powerful statements I have heard in a very long time. 

But with the passage of time, we encounter four of the most beautiful words in holy writ: “And God remembered Rachel” (Genesis 30:22). And she was blessed with the birth of Joseph and later the birth of Benjamin. There are millions on earth today who are descendants of Joseph who have embraced the Abrahamic promise that through their efforts “shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal” (Abraham 2:11). When heaven’s promises sometimes seem afar off, I pray that each of us will embrace these exceeding great and precious promises and never let go. And just as God remembered Rachel, God will remember you. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

So when my mom asks me who I'm going to date when I move back home after graduation, or when someone asks me where I am going to teach after I graduate, I refuse to worry about it, because I have faith, and I know that eventually, God will remember Jody.

Is it me??

Or is Zumba not the work out that everyone claims it is?? I went tonight, more than anything just to have break from running every night, and though it was fun, it was not that great of a work out.  I mean, I sweat, but not like I sweat when I am killing myself on a tredmill.  Am I missing something?  Are my hips not fly like J Lo? Do I drop it like its hot? Or...am I just SO in shape now with all the running that an hour long dance party doesn't wind me.  The answer to all of these is YES... (Except my hips really are fly like J Los...actually they are flier, cuz I'm white and dancing isn't inherent.)

I am getting more excited about this half marathon in April. Every time I tell people about it, they give me one of two responses. Response 1) Wow! I could never do that, you are awesome! (I am not awesome, the only reason I finished my first half was because my dad was there with me to make sure I finished it. Don't believe me?  Readmy half marathon post here.) Response 2) You are an idiot.  Who would ever subject themselves to such torture?

Well, the answer to that is that I subject myself to such torture.  I don't know if I have ever said this, but I absolutely love the feeling I get after running.  I hate everything about running except that feeling.  While I am running, I constantly wonder why it was I decided to go and try to convince myself I should stop and turn around, but when I get home after running, I love how I feel.  I heard a high council speaker once talk about how our bodies are the figurative cars in life, and that our spirits are the drivers.  He then talked about how we should never let our cars determine where our drivers were going to go, that is not our roles.  We have to let our spirits BE the drivers.  This is how I feel about running.  I run, and I run hard because my SPIRIT is going to drive my BODY.  Not the other way around.  Its the whole mind over matter thing.

But more than that, I feel like as I begin to master this mortal body, I feel closer to God.  I know, that sounds ridiculous, but it is true.  As I learn to control myself, my habits, my actions, I feel like the natural man melts away, a little at a time.  It is said that Heavenly Father knows who we need to become and what we need to go through to get there.  Well, I feel like that is why He has inspired me to run.  So I run.  As much as I hate it I run because I know that spiritually, physically, emotionally, it is making me who I need to be, and I WANT to be who God wants me to be.  Does that make sense?

My phone has a cruel sense of humor

So...I put people on my speed dial.  They are important.  I call them a lot.  I like being able to hold down a button and boom they are there! It is easier than memorizing their number, or scrolling through my address book and finding them... especially if I can't remember how I spelled their name when I put it into my phone.  The joys of modern technology are so wonderful.  I have a phone that I can carry with me ANYWHERE! I can call anyone I want, anywhere I want, at any time.  I went to Canada, and my phone worked there! AMAZING!

Of course, that is, until my phone decides to randomly pocket dial people...More specifically call ex-boyfriends who I just haven't gotten around to taking off of my speed dial.

Today as I was talking to my best friend about her adventures in Peru, my cheek somehow called 'The Cowboy'...twice.  Its not that big of a deal because we are still friends after our one month stint as an official couple, except for the fact that he made a point to tell me last night that most girls like the summer time 'Cowboy' and invited me to go hiking and camping with him as soon as it was warm enough. (We broke up because I couldn't spend another weekend on his couch watching sports).  He called me back and asked what was up...I informed him of my cheek's desire to call him, we had a wonderful awkward conversation.

The Friday before my birthday, a few friends and I got together, dressed up in 80's garb, and went roller skating.  Yeah, I know, we are cool.  On the way there, we were getting into the 80s mood and so I put on my favorite song from my blessed childhood, 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' by Whitney Houston.  Picture this: 5 20 something girls in a car, dressed up, headed to go roller skating.  Needless to say we were singing the song at the top of our lungs.  I got out of the car...only to realize that as we were driving my phone had dialed Steven, my ex from this summer who dumped me because I wanted to help him find his testimony, and he was more comfortable dating his ex-girlfriend who would let him be whoever.  I got a text from him asking me if I meant to leave a song on his machine...I didn't.

It happened again as I left class last week and again on Sunday. I took him off my speed dial.

A scripture a day

In a ward conference a few years ago we met together as a Relief Society for the first meeting. (In those days, our ward went backwards, starting with priesthood and R.S. and then Sunday School, and THEN sacrament meeting) I was having a rough time, I had been home from my mission just a little over a year and was struggling to find my way in 'life after the mission'.  In this tough time, our Stake Relief Society Presidency counseled us to have a 'scripture of the day'.  We were told to put it on a note card and carry it with us throughout the day.  On one side was the scripture and on the other side was our application for the day.  In a tough time in my life, this helped me to remember what I was wanting to accomplish that day.  The first scripture I chose was the famous Joshua scripture, 'Be thou strong and of good courage...'

Why do you care to know about this?  Well you probably don't, but I was going through my journal and I got into the habit at that time to tape the scripture of the day card into my journal so that I could remember what was going on each day.  I think it is a good habit that I want to get back into.  I had a few interesting experiences this weekend that reminded me of how easy it is to fall back into old habits if we are not constantly trying to be better.