I once thought I was good at chemistry.
In high school, I enjoyed chemistry. I went so far as to take the grade 12 class a year early. I scored well on the provincial exams.
Confident I was ready for more, I entered university and attended my first few chemistry classes. Here, too, I seemed to remember the fundamentals. We diagrammed reactions and calculated the results to fractions of a milligram. No problem!
All was well until I entered my first lab period. The lecture classes were for theory. The labs were practical chemistry. Things did not go well, but given that I’m alive to tell this story, they could have gone worse.
I was painfully slow and was the last person to leave the lab- an hour late. I only managed to finish due to the mercy of the supervising teaching assistant. We had been assigned to make something simple- a beautiful white, crystalline powder. Mine was certainly not white, and definitely not beautiful. I was left with a grey sludge that dried into a crust but would never crystallize.
It wasn’t a lot of sludge, though. I had only managed to produce about 10% of what the elegant calculations told me I should get. I may have burned a hole in my brand-new white lab coat and broken a test tube (my memory grows fuzzy at this point). My fingers were stained, and I’m certain that I didn’t smell very good.
In short, I staggered out of the lab that evening and thought, I don’t know the first thing about chemistry.
We can experience frustration and disappointment when we struggle with weaknesses or perceived failures in ourselves. In those times, my ill-fated chemistry lab can be a kind of parable.
Premortal Theory
“Each [of us] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents. … In the premortal realm, [as] spirit sons and daughters [we] knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan” (Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102). We don’t know much about our premortal experiences, but we do know that we “received [our] first lessons in the world of spirits” (D&C 138:56). We had the best possible teachers, including Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. And we had a long time to learn those lessons, presumably as much time as we needed.
Ultimately, though, we needed to “obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize [our] divine destiny as heirs of eternal life” (Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102). I imagine that we were somewhat like recent high school graduates. We were so delighted that we would go on to Earth’s “university” that we “shouted for joy”( Job 38:7). We had learned principles such as faith in Heavenly Father, a willingness to trust Jesus Christ, and a desire to be obedient. We all passed.
The Mortal Lab
Until our birth, we had never had a physical body, and we had not been separated from our knowledge of God, His love, and His plan. We were like me: rich in theory and poor in certain types of practical experience.
Our arrival upon earth thrusts us into a demanding and compressed course of study. We have to relearn or, more properly, remember the theory we learned before. And we have to act on that theory without a memory of our heavenly home. Prophets, parents, and other teachers invite us to “experiment upon [their] words” (Alma 32:27). Theory is important, but theory is not enough. We must act. We are in the lab now.
Labs have dangers. An equation on a blackboard will not explode in your face, but a chemical experiment just might. In the lab, we are at risk both from our own poor choices and the actions of others. (In fact, I watched one of my lab partners spill a potent acid on his own lap, requiring an urgent trip to the safety shower!)
The apostle Paul was not a chemist, but I think he felt a little like I did. Paul knew the scriptures well. He was extraordinarily good at theory: “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). But he learned, as we all do, that knowing what is right can be much easier than doing what is right. “We know that the law is spiritual:” he wrote, “but I am carnal, sold under sin” (verse 14). Because we all share some of that carnal nature, “the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (verse 19).
In other words, we all find ourselves not doing what we know we should do, and doing things we know we shouldn’t. We know we should produce beautiful white crystals, but all too often, we end up with a grey sludge. And even when we do our best, we might feel like I did when I got 10% of what the math predicted.
Passing the Class
But we should not despair, and we should not give up. Just as I had my lab coat to protect me, we have covenants that clothe and protect us. If we have been endowed, we even wear a garment to remind us of that protection (Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Garment of the Holy Priesthood,” Liahona, Sept. 2024). Bad things can happen in the lab, but if we keep our covenants, we’ll be safer and shielded from eternal injury due to our own or others’ errors.
Like me, we may fear that we smell or that our hands are stained from our time in the lab, but there is repentance, and baptism, and weekly sacrament to wash us clean again.
Just as I had a kind and understanding teaching assistant who stayed late to let me finish, we all have a Savior who won’t ridicule or reject us when we need help repenting.
Mastering lab work never happens all at once. Instead, Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Incremental improvement is … the order of the day, and it clearly requires the accompaniment of the Lord’s long-suffering as we struggle to learn the necessary lessons” (Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, May 2000, 73). Elder Michael A. Dunn urged us to be “one percent better” and realize that “aggregating small but steady marginal gains in our lives” with “consistent, day-in and day-out effort” can help us “to victory over even the most pesky of our personal shortcomings” (Michael A. Dunn, Ensign, Nov 2021, 106).
After all, what’s the point in taking the class if we already know it all? Real learning requires real risk.
The beauty and miracle of the gospel is that we can get the needed experience without having to ace the class. The Lord Jesus Christ knows it all, will tutor us one-on-one until we “get it,” and will pay for the test tubes we break along the way (D&C 45:3-5; Luke 10:35). It’s only when we drop out or quit coming to class that we’re in real trouble.
I still remember my grade for that long-ago chemistry lab, and it was far better than I deserved. Likewise, if we endure to the end in our covenants, “all that [the] Father hath” will be ours (D&C 84:38; D&C 76:51-60). That’s worth the inevitable grey sludge and stained fingers.