gina prescott

Today marks the ten year anniversary of my baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I approached my baptism ten years ago with a great deal of deliberation but even then I could not ever imagine the significance and importance it would make in these past ten years. It is not something that I have ever taken lightly. I understood from the beginning that this decision would come with a great deal of speculation and criticism but for ten years I have been able to walk in confidence with my decision because of the many spiritual confirmations that I am exactly where I need to be.

When I met Kyle, I was so taken with his sheer joy. His smile emanates from within Him and the more we talked about his faith, the more I realized that his happiness had a great deal to do with his beliefs. The year we dated before he left on his mission we talked every night on the phone and I would grill him relentlessly on every aspect of his faith that I could think of. He didn’t always have immediate answers or answers at all to every question but he was willing to study it out and try his best to explain to me many of the misunderstood beliefs.

Each time he would come back with such sincerity that it was hard not to let down my walls and truly listen. Even so, I never let on that I was intrigued. I strung him along with question after question and he never knew that I was waiting for the right time to officially express interest.

You see, I still couldn’t discern whether I was interested because of him or because of the beautiful beliefs themselves. I decided that I would have to wait until he was far away with our only contact being snail mail.

A month after he left, my desire to learn more remained and I sought out the missionaries.

My very first lesson with them I was asked to be baptized and surprisingly, “yes” came out of my mouth. We were sitting in a small library at a church building with another member who had joined the lesson. The room was bright and warm in contrast to the dark and gray Seattle sky. When the yes came out of my mouth, even I was taken aback. The look on the missionaries faces were of sheer delight and I remember thinking, “Did I just say ‘yes’?!?”

I am often plagued with indecision and I couldn’t believe that I had so quickly responded in the affirmative. It was as if my spirit had leaped out, confirming what my heart truly desired.

The weeks that transpired only confirmed that initial choice as I was taught about a living Christ and my relationship to Him and my Father in Heaven. I was still so nervous getting baptized, even after saying yes, but then the missionaries showed me a video of the current prophet and president of the Church at that time testifying of Christ. It was a simple testimony. He bore witness that He really was who He said He was. He really did all that was written of Him. He suffered for each of us, died and rose again so that we too may all live again. He is the Living Christ and offers us the hope of life eternal and true and everlasting joy. The video ended and we sat in this quiet, sparse room and the missionaries asked a simple question, “How did that make you feel?”

As I sat there, I grew speechless from emotion. My whole body surged with confirmation of truth. I finally uttered the words, “I believe him” and I did. I believed that Savior really was the promised Messiah, not just for people who lives thousands of years ago, but for you and me. I believed that He really did heal and suffer and die and rise again and that in modern times He continues to reach out to us in guidance through prophets and a living church.

I left that room that day confident in the direction I was heading.

These past ten years have not been absent of questions and trials. Things aren’t always rosy and perfectly bathed in light, but each time as I struggle to understand something or work my way through a trial I always come back to that room, where I received my very first confirmation of  truth.

My confirmation came from finally knowing and believing Jesus Christ. This knowledge has carried me through my darkest moments. In the depth of grief and pain through losing a child I was angry and confused and so incredibly hurt. I didn’t understand why this happened, why to me, what does it mean to die before you are born and as I wrestled for weeks with so many questions, there was never a clear answer to all of the “why”s. I wanted to understand so badly but each day as I prayed and pondered, the answer that continuously came was, “Some things we don’t get to know in this life, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still grow.” I struggled to find comfort in the unknown. To stand still and confident in this earthly life trusting in the kind Heavenly Father I had come to know. Trusting in His goodness and in the grace of His son. Walking in faith that the path forward was still a path worth traveling.

So I continued forward, looking for the ways I could grow. Looking for ways to serve, ways to better understand grace, resting within the truth of my initial choice so many years before; that I was exactly where I needed to be.

I am grateful for the many experiences that have occurred over the past ten years, experiences that confirmed that initial truth. I am grateful that my testimony began with its foundation upon Christ and that each doctrine, each principle, each truth that I come to understand is built upon that foundation. Every nail and beam directs me to Him. I see His grace and love even within the complications and the unknowns and it overwhelms me. I meet people who have had trials and struggles and questions and I see them looking towards Christ in all of it as well and I am speechless.

Many find our temples beautiful and they absolutely are. But in my ten years of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the greatest beauty has come from seeing imperfect people trying to be His hands on this earth. I see people trying to serve and help those around them especially with their own struggles and trials. I see beauty in doctrines and ordinances that bring peace and joy into the lives of many. I see beauty in the principle that each of us has a right to receive revelation for ourselves, that we are all directed to seek out truth and I witness people seeking it!

I think about that moment where I dressed in a dorky white jumpsuit and entered a warm pool of water and I remember how it felt to be lifted up from immersion. I came to life! Afterwards, I fell to my knees in the bathroom and uttered a sincere prayer of gratitude that I had never before expressed. The world was the same as it had been a minute before but a spark ignited within me that day and it has only grown stronger. My spirit was filled with hope and light and pure joy.

Ten years ago I bound my heart to Jesus Christ and in making that covenant I promised to follow Him, to trust Him even with my limited understanding, to have faith that His grace would cover all of my weaknesses and failings and pain.

I continue to walk forward in that faith, knowing He is always right beside me and knowing that I am still exactly where I need to be.  

When I started my shopping ban in January, my main focus was to save money so that we could purchase a home. Not shopping made a HUGE impact on our finances and allowed us the ability to accomplish that goal only six months into my challenge. In the same month that we finalized buying our house and moved, I had committed to a community theater production and found out that I was pregnant with our fourth baby.

I didn’t think much of it at first as the nausea hadn’t started and I was excited about a new home and performing again. However, the stress of balancing two major life events and spending a massive amount of time rehearsing caused me to slacken my grip and lose focus on the ultimate reason I was doing this shopping ban.

It wasn’t to be able to purchase a home, it was to be conscious about how we spent our money, to reach a financial freedom that didn’t result in the constant pursuit of “new” that masks our human desire for perfection.

I am not saying that I have been horrible and shopping a ton, but I have certainly made some purchases that broke the shopping ban.

At first I justified them because I had not considered the fact that we would be renovating a fixer upper in January and would need to purchase not only paint and brushes but curtains and a bench and a dresser and the list grew and grew. Living in our tiny duplex, I hadn’t even considered home goods being an issue because we had no need for them. Our dressers were destroyed hand-me-downs but they served their purpose. We only need the four chairs for our table. Blinds came with the duplex. It was easy to avoid those aisles at the store.

Home items haven’t been the only issue though. Being pregnant for the fourth time had me looking at my maternity wardrobe with frustration. Most of the things that I have were purchased second-hand during my first pregnancy and at this point were falling apart. I have also always had summer babies, and here I was staring at a pregnancy that would end in January. That is a very different set of clothes. So I have bought myself two pairs of jeans (second-hand), a pair of leggings, a sweater (second-hand), two dresses (one was technically a gift from Kyle), and a shirt that I don’t groan with annoyance looking at for the billionth time. A local mom gifted me a maternity coat and I am feeling much better about reaching January. However, the whole summer I have been trying to figure out how to justify these purchases to people who knew I wasn’t shopping. In the meantime, a new school year and my birthday approached and I bought some art for our home and school clothes for Max (half of it second-hand and half new-new). I made a trip to Target a few too many times, usually for totally reasonable purchases only to find myself wandering other aisles and finding something that I had been making due without for six months. I could go on and on, but ultimately I came to the realization that I had totally lost focus on my purpose for this whole challenge in the first place.

It shocked me how easily and slowly it had happened.

I knew I would make mistakes, but I so badly didn’t want to disappoint anyone who was watching to see if it was even possible.

Talking with Kyle last night, I expressed my disappointment and he reassured me that I had not done as badly as I thought, only that maybe I had lost focus and avoided the need to reassess when changes occurred and that really the whole point of this challenge wasn’t really to buy a home (that had only been a tangible goal) but to learn to be more thoughtful and purposeful when buying things.

Learning is part of the challenge, so some mistakes will happen.I want to finish strong though. I want to be proud of myself for the efforts that I made to change the way money is spent and used in our home and so with the help of my husband we came up with a revised challenge that acknowledges the fact that we are working on a fixer upper and are expecting a baby after the new year. So here it is:

Criteria for Purposeful and Intentional Purchases:

1. Assess with whether a purchase is a want or need. The key to this is being honest with oneself which is really hard to do when surrounded by hundreds of tempting items. Sometimes finding a less cluttered area or even closing your eyes (I have totally been that weirdo who looks like she is meditating in an aisle) helps to find clarity when you feel overly stimulated by a plethora of choices. The store provides so many options leading us to ask, “Which do I want?” when in reality the question should really be, “Do I actually need this?”
2. Purchases should be either beautiful or useful to us. It should be something we love, not a temporary fix or something purchased because of convenience. Is this something I will always want is a great way for me to determine whether I find it useful or love it. This is especially true for finding items as I make a house a home.
3. Ask myself, “Does this align with my long-term goals?” It helps to have concrete goals you are working towards. After purchasing a home I didn’t have a concrete goal and that is part of why I lost focus. My new goal is really focusing on our student loans. This way, each time I make a decision I can think of our student loans (which I hate and make me sad) and decide whether or not the purchase is worth it. Is it worth spending the money on some buckets of blue paint for our living room now or can I wait and make the best of what I have? After all of your thoughtful suggestions from last week on the house update, it made way more sense to hold off on painting until another time. I would rather spend that money toward student loans or in this case, shelves by the fireplace for all of our books.

Sometimes starting this shopping ban feels like the worst idea ever, but only because it requires a lot of self-reflection on your weaknesses (which is never enjoyable). Even just nine months into this, I have discovered so much of my growth comes from acknowledging shortcoming and working towards building them into strengths. That’s life in general isn’t it? We can spend a lifetime fighting to ignore and dismiss our weaknesses, but when we physically, mentally, and spiritually take the time to look into ourselves, the truth is there and working toward aligning ourselves towards it brings a more rewarding feeling than any half-priced discount we could ever find.  

p.s. All these pictures are from a trip to Lake Tahoe at the end of the summer.

Yesterday, Daniel turned two. He is a bright ray of sunshine. He is expressive and loves laughing. When he signs thank you, he blows a kiss. He is quick to shake hands and give out hugs.

He has a lot of love in him to spread.

He gets mad sometimes and tries to scream and although he is usually very loud in all other things, his scream is so contained and quiet.

He has been slow to talk and prefers to tug me around the house and point instead. We are both frustrated by this.

A couple of months ago he started to want to sleep with Max’s lovey, James the dog (we bought two identitical stuffed dog animals and buried one with James), and was frustrated that he didn’t have his own. I pulled out our meager assortment of stuffed animals (not many survived the purge of 2013) and he selected a hippo that someone else had given to Max after James died. To say my heart surged when I realized the connection is an understatement. I am so happy they both have a lovey they cling to at night that is connected to James.

“Hippo” is also one of the few words he willingly offers up.

Danny has taken up the hobby of removing his socks and shoes as much as possible. His feet have plumped up and my theory is that all shoes feel tight. He wanders a majority of the time barefoot and free. Anytime he steps on something he sits down to investigate the bottom of his foot (he is well aware of what slivers “owies” are by this point) and notify me if anything is awry.

He loves his scooter and rides it around our back patio constantly. For a long time he just pushed it backwards like some tiny toddler walker and still does it often.

He has an epic scowl with a full eyebrow furrow. This is how he lets you know he is displeased that things are not going his way.

They refer to a baby born after loss as a rainbow baby and I would say that Daniel fits that bill perfectly. He provides so much reassurance of God’s love and grace. He is a constant reminder that there is good in this world. Whenever the news gets me down I just put down my phone and stare at his and his infectious smile. His excitement for everything is contagious.

Happy Birthday Danny boy!

Remember Blue Beauty? She is much less blue. Unfortunately we are at a standstill with making her feel completely like home.

I initially wanted everything white because the blue was so overwhelming (remember everything was the color of the fireplace: walls, trim, ceiling, door). Once we pulled out the groovy carpet and resealed the floors (I say we but this was all Kyle, this was the best part of going through the first trimester) thing improved significantly but I still was unsure and Kyle wanted to paint before we moved in so I said “MAKE IT WHITE!” Which he actually hated. He was like what about a different color on the walls? NOPE. Maybe a dark trim. NO WAY. I was firm, resolute. But then it took me three weeks to pick whites. Yes, multiple whites. I wanted to match the trim to the rest of the house for continuity so we have Benjamin Moore Dove White on the trim and Benjamin Moore Simply White on the walls and some basic ceiling white that Kyle grabbed (Fun secret we learned, you can take pretty colors from Benjamin Moore and Home Depot will match them using their Behr paint making it MUCH cheaper to paint many walls white). It looks exactly the same as our Benjamin Moore samples that we tested colors with.

I know that it there doesn’t appear to be much difference but the trim is more gray-white and the walls are more cream-white, AND I DON’T WANT TO HEAR OTHERWISE!

But now we are at a standstill because we are trying to figure out where to put all of our books. Stand alone shelves look odd by the fireplace. We are thinking built-ins? Where do we put the tv then? Kyle votes for above the fireplace and I would chuck the thing if I didn’t love it for allowing me time to shower. Maybe along the opposite wall of the couch? With pictures behind it? Maybe some plants flocking either side? Or if we do go with above the fireplace what do we do with the rest of the space? Ideally I want an L-shaped couch and possibly some other seating.

Makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Any and all ideas are welcome. (Please please please help!)

Also, I am leaning towards painting the walls again. I know, I know, I spent three weeks deciding on a white.

But…I have a specific blue-gray in mind that I think would create the warmth and brightness I crave in a home. I needed this blank slate to get the ball rolling. Kyle rolled his eyes at first but secretly he is happy that I might want something other than white. If we did that, the fireplace would be painted white and the trim would be kept white as would the ceiling.

My hope for this home is to make it warm and inviting and cheerful. I want to honor its 1925 history, revive it a bit.

It has been exciting to get to dream up ideas and concoct plans and it is most definitely a learning process where I am reminded of my extremely fickle ways.