Hi neickm. If they won't even try to meditate, perhaps you're not dropping them in the right place. I've attached an image that shows where I dropped my villager to meditate and she is meditating. It also shows the stages of meditation (rainbows over her head when meditation is working, sparkles around her head when meditation is complete and she's "Pure of mind." You may notice that my stream is also flowing freely. Perhaps that helped her?

When your villager has the sparkles around their head and they're no longer meditating, that's the time to drop them on the bars of soap.
Good luck!