one post, two reasons: jo's b-day roast and a compliment to remember

it's that time of the week again... time for me to sit down and type a new blog entry. this blog will mostly be dedicated to my younger sister, jodi, in celebration of her and the birthday she celebrated this last week. contrary to popular belief, jodi is not the little ten year old that many of you may remember her as. like many of us, she got older with each passing year, went to school, got married, taught school, started raising a kid named ryan, and then had her own kids except that most of us probably didn't actually give birth to our kids, and if we did, most of us didn't name them ryan (not that she gave birth to ryan).

ryan is jodi's husband. i first saw ryan when he met up with our family in san diego for a family vacation. we were all anxious to meet ryan because he had already broken several very important cooper family rules that made him somewhat of an enigma to the rest us. namely, ryan drank caffeine, called himself a democrat, would have pizza delivered to him rather than doing take-out because he didn't mind paying a tip, and worst of all, ryan checked on his luggage when flying. actually, i'm not sure if checking on luggage is the worst of the egregious offenses i listed; however, this post isn't about ryan and his "vices," so we'll save my self-righteous indignation for another day.

that being said, ryan, is relevant to this post as i am about to recount certain excerpts from the speech i gave at ryan and jodi's wedding luncheon the day they got married (i needed to clarify that they had their wedding luncheon on the same day they got married just in case that wasn't implicit). i do this for two reasons, one because i am in the business of embarrassing people on this blog. secondly, because my speech led to one of the greatest compliments i have ever received and i am all about self-promotion on this blog, as well, i.e. everyone should know when i have done something noteworthy and if you don't hear about it on the news first then you will certainly read about it on my blog. chances are it will be the latter.

allow me to set the scene. jodi's husband, that ryan guy, is the grandson of the late elder neal a. maxwell. for those not familiar with the lds church, elder maxwell was a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles and a master wordsmith if there ever was one. at least one book has been written solely dedicated to his lexicon alone. his words are constantly quoted in church talks, church lessons, church books (including steve-o covey's 7 habits, even though many do not realize "7 habits" is technically not a church book in spite of being oft quoted in church meetings as it was never canonized) and the like. the sheer genius with which he was able to brilliantly express ideas, eloquently draw analogies, and masterfully articulate his thoughts to promote spiritual principles and Christianity has made him a favorite of many.

in case it's not obvious, i am a huge admirer of elder maxwell's works largely due to his uncanny ability to write and speak. so, it should come as no surprise that i was elated to find out that elder maxwell would be performing the wedding ceremony between ryan and jodi and then attending the wedding luncheon i was to speak at later that day. clarification: while i was elated elder maxwell would be at the luncheon, i was also very intimidated that he would be in the audience during my speech.

that being said, it was a wedding luncheon, which means that i was supposed to embarrass my sister and, as i noted above, embarrassing people is my specialty... especially if i like them. in jodi's case, she's fairly likeable. she was the ideal younger sister. no offense annie and kathryn, you guys were ideal younger sisters as well (can't we all be ideal younger sisters?), but neither of you ever took my sweaty socks off for me after a game of basketball simply because i was too lazy to do it myself. on top of that, jo would make my lunch for me to take to work the next day and pretty much do anything else i asked her to just because. very helpful and very sweet. that's the kind of girl jodi was and i say "was" because ever since she got married she just doesn't do that type of stuff for me anymore. go figure.

at any rate, jo's a great gal, so great that i felt compelled to thoroughly embarrass her during her wedding luncheon... yes, even in the presence of elder maxwell.

to start off, i talked about jo's alter-ego, "comman-jo." comman-jo is the alternate personality jo jo takes on when she is trying to get something done in a family clean-up project type setting. she is very efficient about barking out orders to the rest of us to complete such tasks as mowing the lawn in the thick of a vegas summer or washing all the windows at my parent's house of endless glass while she preoccupies herself with such difficult chores as arranging pictures in the bathroom and the like. in all fairness though, comman-jo hasn't been around too much lately... she must be seeing a therapist. either that or ryan gets all of comman-jo's attention these days.

after comman-jo i seamlessly transitioned into jodi's love of the camera. no, she's not a photographer who loves to take pictures, rather she loves to be on the other end of the camera when the pictures are taken. for a while there, life was but a photo shoot for my little sister and all the world was her catwalk. she had all the poses down. my personal favorite was the hand over the mouth in the "oops, what a surprise... i had no idea you had a camera and were going to take a picture of me" look. let's just say jodi probably has more pics of herself than anyone i know who's not a model. not that there's anything wrong with that.

following that, i talked about the time jo excitedly, and proudly, told me she ran in a marathon that spanned the grueling distance of five kilometers... 1.5 of which she had to walk, allegedly.

then there was the semester she got straight "a's" in college except that one of her grades was a "c" which didn't count because "the teacher was a jerk" or something to that effect. i think it was at this point in my speech when elder maxwell got up to leave the room. "uh oh," i thought, "i've gone too far and offended one of the brethren." but, i kept my cool and persevered to the grand finale during which i expounded on jo's acute familiarity with church history.

jo once shed light on a little-known fact about joseph smith, the first mormon prophet. the story goes that while joseph was a young boy he had some type of infection/disease that was attacking a part of his leg so severely that amputation seemed inevitable. apparently, some cutting-edge (no pun intended, seriously) surgery was available that joseph was willing to receive in an effort to save his leg.

it was an intense surgery that required a partial removal of the bone in his leg, but left the leg intact... meaning amputation never took place, at least that's what all the available evidence had been telling us for years (keep reading). for many mormons this is an inspiring story exemplifying the strength and resolve of the prophet joseph smith as he was very young at the time he received the surgery and did so without any form of anesthetic. pretty much every mormon who goes to church has heard this story at least one hundred times.

well, jodi is a mormon who goes to church and has likely heard that story a hundred times over. but, one sunday, when called upon by the bishop of our congregation without any notice to share some thoughts with the rest of the attendees, jo revealed a morsel of truth relating to said story that up until that point was unbeknownst to everyone in that room. it was di vinci code-esque...

succinctly stated, jo revealed to the congregation, among other things, that she was very inspired by all that the prophet joseph had accomplished while specifically mentioning his ability to persevere in spite of having had his leg amputated. i, for one, did not know that. it was groundbreaking.... and she mentioned it so matter-of-factly as if everyone already knew, but that's just like her not wanting to draw attention to herself and her discovery.

well, turns out, it would have been fairly groundbreaking had it been true, but unfortunately it was not. no biggie. in actuality, it's really not the worst misstatement of fact one could make in front of a church congregation... especially if you're ten years old or younger at the time, but, in jodi's case, she was not ten or younger when she said this, in fact, she had just finished her first year of college and had probably taken some institute classes that addressed that very story . like i said, minor detail. no harm, no foul.

truth be told, we probably giver her a harder time about this story than she deserves, and i'm sure she was nervous while speaking in front of a large crowd impromptu, but we've all heard countless stories about how good of a leg wrestler joseph smith was or seen the bronze statues of him standing erect on both legs and similar paintings... and so far as i can tell, none of these works depict him with a prosthetic limb. i'm not judging you, jo, i'm just saying...

that's about where i finished up. it was all good times. we laughed as much as a sober mormon crowd does at one of these things and we all felt better for having been there once everything finished up, which brings me to point number two of my story... and this is quick, i promise.

as i was shaking hands and accepting the good wishes and admiration of those who had enjoyed my words, read: my mom and my wife, i came into contact with elder maxwell. "this should be interesting," i thought... "either he is going to tell me how i offended him and why he left or we will exchange common pleasantries and go our separate ways." either way, i would be thoroughly satisfied to have simply conversed with the man. turns out, elder maxwell was a fan. he shook my hand, with slightly more enthusiasm than i was expecting, and told me i'd done "an excellent job." i thought, "wow, that's pretty neat, a sincere compliment from one of my all-time favorite orators, but i bet he's this nice to every guy he talks to who roasts his sister at a wedding luncheon." still, this is a compliment i'll never forget.

but, then he re-emphasized how well he thought i had done by saying "no, really, you did an outstanding job," all while still shaking my hand for an extended period of time, but not to the point where it was uncomfortable. i'm sure i blushed and mumbled some sort of thanks or reiteration of how i really knew that joseph hadn't had his leg amputated, but to say i was flattered is an understatement.

it wasn't much, and, like i said, i'm sure he was that nice and complimentary to everyone he came into contact with. however, it did mean a lot to me and i will certainly look to that moment for inspiration every time i speak at a wedding luncheon in the future. so, if you've had a similar experience with elder maxwell, now would not be the appropriate time to share unless you are one of those one-upper, thunder-stealing kind of guys... in which case, please allow two days to pass before posting the experience so that i may live in this blissful world of ignorance i have created for myself just a little longer. thank you.

in closing...

jo, you're a great lady and a wonderful sister. we love you and are lucky to have you around. happy eleventh birthday.