Not much news...

There isn't too much to report and there are no new pictures, but Dereck has told us some stories that I thought I would share. He has had some funny experiences. He and his companion were walking down a street to do some street contacting and a guy on a bike wanted to talk to them. It turns out he was doing a movie about missionaries going to West Hollywood - I don't suppose it would have been a very nice movie. They left him pretty quickly. Another time, they were street contacting and Elder Burris got pegged with a rogue water balloon. I guess they can laugh about it now, but at the time he was not too happy.
He has been very busy attending zone leader conferences and become somewhat discouraged to find that their zone was not up to par. Rather than whine, this is what they decided to do. I think he can tell you better than I can. Here is what he wrote:
"This has been a week of weeks. We have been trying to put more out, to truly leave it all out on the line. We were super busy with zone leader stuff. Well we knew if we wanted to change the laziness of this zone we needed to start setting a better example and bigger and do more. They have something called the goal. We must get 20 lessons, 10 hours of tracting and 2 member presents. There is also a standard that has been set up that is called the standard of excellence. Well, that is something that I have been striving to accomplish my entire mission and to set that standard. Well now that I am a zone leader I was told that that would be changed because of so much stuff to do. Well that is not true, we started working our tails off!! Dang i love that. Well, we got the goal we got the majority of the standards of excellence and more importantly we are truly preparing souls to be baptized. We never found one person off of tracting and what we were doing but we got a referral over the phone and went over there and found a golden investigator. Then we went to pec and in the middle and a lady called and said I want to be baptized and she and her son will be taught tonight. I don't have good speaking skills. I don't have lots of gospel knowledge. I am not the best missionary. But, I can testify if you will put yourself out in full the Lord truly picks you up in your failings All those things become useful for good. This is true the Lord cares for you and and I. I love all of you and I love the Lord. "