Break functions into two functions for better testing

[ewang2002]

For testing purposes, it might be a good idea to break each function responsible for calling into a different endpoint into two functions:

• a function that takes a JSON string and parses it and returns it, and
• a function that makes the API call and gets a JSON string (and calls the function mentioned above).

Then, the idea is that our 2nd function can call the 1st function w/ the JSON string, but we can also call the 1st function with our own string for testing purposes.