Hey,
So you know how people always say that your mission is a roller coaster of emotion? I have seen that to be true this week. Our investigator ติ๊ก (Tig), the guy that has been a completely golden investigator for us here in Bangna, met with us the other day and told us he has finished reading the Book of Mormon! He has been learning for only 5 months and has read the whole book in that short of time! We then talked about him being baptized here on the 13th of December and he was all ready to go he said. He said he was excited for it! We were way excited for it! He was finally going to be baptized after the last 2 months of going over his concerns and trying to fix them. On Monday, he was scheduled to be interviewed but that morning we got a phone call from him. I answered the phone and he didn't sound too happy. It sounded like he had bad news and he did...he said he wasn't ready to be interviewed today and he wasn't ready to be baptism. I thought shoot...I thought we had fixed all of his concerns. So we canceled the interview and yesterday we met with him to try and see what the deal was and it didn't end well. He just said that he was happy to have been able to come here and learn with us and he will never forget the things that we taught him. He is going to keep praying and coming to church and living the commandments but he just doesn't want to be baptized. He just truly doesn't see the importance of it and he thinks if he is baptized he will no longer be free to do what he wants. He is more worried about having fun...It was way hard to hear this from him because I have seen him come so far and he was so close to being baptized. He helped give me hope for progression in an area that had nothing going for it when I first got here. Its going to be weird to not teach him anymore. Yesterday was a hard day having to think about that.
Having that lesson with Tig yesterday was definitely the trough of the missionary roller coaster. Luckily when your on a roller coaster, when you go down, you also come up. I didn't have to think about Tig for to long because ป๊อป (Pop), another one of our investigators is going to be baptized this Sunday and we had to go and prepare for his baptism right after we taught Tig! He had his interview on Monday and he was totally prepared for it! He passed with flying colors. The Zone Leader that interviewed him said he had never interview someone that had such a strong testimony and a great understanding of the gospel. He will be an amazing member! He is way excited to be baptized.
So this week has kind of been bitter sweet. Hopefully the sweetness will overpower the bitterness by the end of the week.

Elder Olsen