I tell my students that chemistry has its ancient origins in efforts to enrich the lives of those who practiced it. Alchemy, one of the earliest true forms of chemistry, involved a series of reactions with chemical reagents in an effort to turn lead into gold. We're all interested in enriching ourselves, in finding a golden ticket, a golden opportunity, or a golden investigator. We all want our lives to have meaning and make things better for the people around us, particularly people we love. Naturally and consequently when they choose to be something else, to take a different path, to practice the paradigm of the prodigal, it weighs us down that what could be gold remains as lead. However, for those who truly believe in, work for, and try to live like Christ, the promise remains and reminds us that Christ will pick up His jewels. We don't know how to truly help people sometimes, and sometimes we do things with ulterior motives. It's very difficult to be altruistic and objective, especially when we're emotionally involved in a particular outcome. We're also impatient, hoping to see the rewards of our efforts, to take glory unto ourselves, and to reap what we sow. We are part of the miracle, but only part. God's will will be done, it will be done well, and it will be done on time, His time, in His season.
Usually gold becomes lead because we're either using techniques that don't work or materials that cannot lead lead to gold. What alchemists don't understand is that the techniques available to them could never turn lead into gold because they lacked sufficient energy to make those changes. Often we try to apply the adversary's methods thinking they can achieve the Father's plan. As previously written, only virtuous means can really lead to virtuous ends. If you force or trick someone into doing what is right, it might do you for a spell, but even if it sticks it may be a cursed life, a half life, that eventually degrades in a burst of matter and energy that lays waste to the golden life you think you created. Additionally, if you don't actually start with lead, the techniques that turn lead into gold will turn whatever else you have into something else, perhaps something worse, but definitely something other than what you intended. In chemistry we apply certain techniques, protocols, and reactions because they are the most likely to succeed. Even then, as students can attest, we never get 100% yield. I don't think it's possible. It's certainly not likely, and so even if you do everything perfectly, forces beyond your understanding or control often conspire to produce something else. My first "investigator" in Austria, Aniko Kittle, illustrated this principle. My trainer and I spent a great deal of time with Aniko "teaching" her, which was really an excuse to not visit other people. When Elder Wagstaff discovered I stopped visiting Aniko, he was furious, but I knew that she was spending time with us because she was lonely. Aniko's husband had left her with two little children, and Bishop Warosh's wife took them under her wing, but she wasn't friendly with the church to join it; she was friendly to benefit from the friendship and generosity of the members. Aniko's lead wasn't going to turn to gold by the normal methods, and so I knew it wasn't wise to continue to hope those reactions would work. Chemistry is not personal; it's about the method, about the preferences of the universe which follows the law and has no interest in what you desire unless you set the stage for that correctly.
Often, gold becomes leaden when we're emotionally involved in the outcome. Sunday, a young woman reported on her missionary service in Bolivia. Apparently Bolivia is rich with golden people and golden opportunities, and she spoke glowingly about her experiences and her great frequency of success there inviting people to come to Christ and improve their lives. After the meeting, Tom, who returned recently from Russia asked me if his experience was a lie since his was greatly different from hers. I told him that I only had one golden opportunity as a missionary, and that's probably why I remember her name. Daniella Palaora, who lived on Beda-Weber Gasse in Innsbruck, Austria, approached ME at the street display on Mueseumstrasse, to ask me how she could help her children know about God and His love for them. She was textbook golden- read everything, prayed immediately, came to church, met with members, and agreed to be baptised. Only ten days after meeting her, her husband stepped in and forbade us from any further interaction with her. I took it better than Elder Graham and Elder Husz, because I wasn't emotionally involved in the outcome, having only spoken with Daniella once, but I remember her name because it was a powerful and rare experience. In 2013, when a woman for whom I really cared rebuffed my affections and cut me out of her life, I understood how those other missionaries must have felt to lose access to Daniella, because I was emotionally involved. A golden opportunity became leaden because a male family member protracted a slanderous and libelous campaign against my Faith and cut us off. I felt weighed down, impoverished, and disappointed. My golden opportunity failed to enrich my life or hers, and in the end I think everyone lost at least for now, and it hurts.
Sometimes lead turns into gold only after forces beyond your control act and at a time long after you leave the lab. We are poor players who strut and fret our hour on stage only to largely amount to nothing. My first speaking role in a play was as the First Servant in Julius Caesar, who has one line, and who dies after making his stand to Caesar. Of course, Caesar discovers he was right, but too late to save the First Servant from death. My first real investigator that I found in Austria, Ursula Huber, lived on Bahnhofgasse in Neumarkt am Wallersee. Ten years before meeting us, she recounted, God told her to speak with two missionaries she saw walking in Salzburg who disappeared around a corner to never be seen again. Then, I walked into her dry cleaner one Wednesday to have my suit cleaned, and she decided it was time to talk to us. Despite the great amount of work done by God to prepare her heart and mind, she still reticently resisted our invitations to repent and be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ. Eventually, I told her that we needed to spend time looking for people who were prepared to align their lives to God's will and that I would not visit her as much so that we would be available to find those people. Two weeks later, I was transferred to Hall in Tirol, and six months later Ursula finally consented to follow the promptings and accept God's commands. When I saw her last, soon after her baptism, I told her that obviously God needed to send someone else, because I was out of ideas, and because that jolted her to act. Sure, we hope to be present for and participant in the miracle, and we know it will enrich our lives, but since it's also about enriching THEIR lives, does it really matter who gets the credit and when it happens so long as it happens? I am happy for her and for my companion Elder Lutter who got to baptize the very first person he EVER taught as a missionary, and the Salzburg-Flachgau ward was overjoyed to have her, but it happened long after I was gone and after other things happened that I could not achieve. No matter how golden an opportunity may be, sometimes it takes time and patience and forces beyond our poor power to add or detract in order to finish the process and bring forth gold from the din of a life and make things richer.
I have seen all too many golden opportunities turn into lead, and I have seen all too much lead decide to stay that way, and it hurts. An old friend from High School told me once that she felt I had the propensity to see people as they could be, their best selves, and then take it personally when they decide, at least for now, to be something other than rise to their full potential. Just because lead isn't gold yet doesn't mean it won't be one day. Just because it didn't enrich me doesn't mean it won't enrich them that I came to try to react upon their lives and change things for the better. It isn't about me; it's about the leaden soul becoming golden through the Atonement of Christ. As we think of Christmas, and of God's Christ, that's the miracle. No matter how dark or dense or heavy the lead may weigh down your soul, Christ has the power to turn any leaden life into a golden one, to make rich what once seemed worthless and give value to your life. He can do things I never could because He acts in better ways and over a longer period than I can. As a missionary, I was only there for a season and able to do only so much. The Great Alchemist can make anything worthless and heavy into anything valuable and uplifting. Sometimes I wonder why He asks me to do anything. I feel like Miracle Max, afraid I might kill whomever He asks me to make a miracle. However, this is the Christmas season, His season, the time of year when we remind ourselves of that thrill of hope as the weary world rejoices, that prodigals can return, and that everyone can be made bright, even if we feel we have no gifts to bring parum-pa-pa-pum fit to set before the King. How great the importance to make these things known unto all the world that He will make intercession for ALL the children of men, that Christ can make golden anything weighed down by the lead of the world. He can even rescue you from Egypt. Even lead can be led.
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