"Oh, I wish I were a little bar of soap..."

Ever since I started "missionary blogging" I've been looking at ordinary things in a different light. I look at lots of things in terms of whether or not I can make a connection to a gospel topic and then I take a picture and write a post.

Well, I've been thinking about doing something for my blog called "The Soap Erosion Experiment." The idea was that I would buy two identical bars of soap and put them in two different places in the shower. One "in the line of fire" (being hit by water whenever the shower was on,) and one out of the way. I would still use both bars of soap equally and I would see which would run out first. I was going to take weekly pictures of each bar of soap and watch the erosion process. (Yes, I am a science nerd if that was what you were wondering. I even made a diagram of the shower.)

As I considered doing this, it hit me that it would be a ridiculous waste of time and money. It isn't really like I didn't know which bar of soap would erode faster (the one in "the line of fire.") I would really just be doing it for the sake of doing it. Then I had the idea of doing a meta-blog post all about going out of my way to make a blog post and relate it to the gospel. So here goes nothing.

This is my bar of soap.

What I learned from this whole idea/ thought process that I had is that you don't need to try something in order to know what the outcome will be. I knew that the bar of soap that is constantly being hit by water whenever the shower was on was going to erode faster than the one that was kept away from the stream of water. I knew this because I learned it from my science teachers in elementary school. It works the same way with the gospel. I don't need to sin in order to find out if it's bad for me or not. I know that when I sin it will damage my soul. I know this because I have been taught. In the Book of Mormon, Alma talked about the effects that his sins had on him. He said,

"But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins...I was tormented with the pains of hell...the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror...for three days and for three nights was I racked, even with the pains of a damned soul...I was harrowed up by the memory of my many sins." Alma 36:12-17

That description alone is enough for me to never want to commit sin. I know that Heavenly Father wants all of His children to know the effects of sin so that they will choose to avoid it. He doesn't want any of us to have to feel that way because His son already did.

“There is no greater evidence of the infinite power and perfection of God’s love than is declared by the Apostle John: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son’ (John 3:16). Another Apostle wrote that God ‘spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all’ (Romans 8:32). Think how it must have grieved our Heavenly Father to send His Son to endure incomprehensible suffering for our sins. That is the greatest evidence of His love for each of us!” -Dallin H. Oaks, Love and Law

So, rather than making an experiment of our lives and trying everything to see what the effects will be. Let's learn from the experience of others.