Another busy week, with lots of "stuff" going on at the CV.  However, the big item was
Tom's birthday yesterday.  Since we are in Mexico and far from anywhere to actually go shopping, there were no birthday presents.  We did go to L'Ecatroz (the panaderia that is close to our apartment) and buy two pasteles (cakes) to share with the Sisters.  AND we invited them all to have cake with us on Sunday evening when the Center closed.  Sunday got off to a slow start--which is OK--but quickly went into high gear as the Stake President was in our Ward to release the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric and call him as the new Elder's Quorum President.  After that, he spent quite a bit of time instructing the Ward in how the new changes would affect them, like not going to the Bishop with every little problem!  Tom spent a LOT of his time as Stake President trying to teach the same thing!  We decided that what President Nelson did during Conference was give some teeth to what was already in the Handbook of Instructions.  Now we hope people will pay attention.  From there we went to the VC, where we had a steady stream of investigators.  It was actually a lot of fun.  We had a visit from a member of the Area Presidency--who arrived with friends from the States, a visit from an entire Primary, visits from several Missionaries with investigators, etc.  No two days are ever the same in the VC!  We then had a great dinner with the new Senior Couple (Office) the Johnsons, along with the Tanners and Johnsons (Pres. of the Temple Johnson).  We finished the day with our celebration with the Sisters--and how much fun!  We told them this was not a party, just sharing birthday cake--but they went all out and made Birthday cards that were precious!  We are saving all of them in our scrapbook!

As for the rest of the week....  It is past and gone!  We had multiple calls with Salt Lake about our struggling technology, and they are now doing all repairs remotely so they can keep track of the issues.  We found out our new Senior couple will not be staying on the temple square--that apartment was given to the new office couple.  We lost a lot of sleep over that one, because it is dangerous to walk the streets around the temple after dark, and that is what they will have to do.  The office couple will NOT have to be our of their apartment after dark.  Since we were promised that they would be on the square (and safe) we were really upset.  However, we are adjusting and are working out ways to keep them off the street.  It will mean readjusting everyone's schedule, but it will be OK.  AND, we got a Pday this week!  Even though Elder Cisneros continues to struggle with his health, the Sosa's called and volunteered to take an extra day.  We spent the day in the Temple.  It was a great break!  Enough for now, we have an apartment to clean and errands to run.

In Mexico, Santa Semana is a two week vacation.  Schools are dismissed for two weeks, families head out to visit extended family or to head to the beaches.  The weather is beautiful, warm and dry.  And the streets are virtually empty (relatively speaking).  We thought that Santa Semana would bring us a quiet week in the Visitor's Center.  We were wrong.  Our weekday numbers doubled and tripled as families who were vacationing in Mexico City headed to the Temple to sightsee or visit.  It was a lot of fun to talk with people from all over Mexico who were here on "vaciones".  More fun that they came as families.  And not all were members--a lot were people who just wanted to know more. 
We took advantage of the light traffic by getting brave enough to drive to Costco Lindavista and stock up.  It took us about 20 minutes to get there, but only about 10 to get home.  That is thanks to one way streets and the Circuito--which is always crowded.  We did manage to find some hollow chocolate easter eggs there, and bought two huge bags to share with the sisters for Easter Sunday.  We looked all over for other easter candy, but Mexico doesn't do easter candy, so we had no luck.  I finally ended up finding a recipe for Reese's easter eggs, and made that up.  They didn't look anything like Reese's easter eggs, but they tasted great!  We had planned on taking our 6-week pictures of the sisters on Wednesday morning, but they pleaded out (hair not done, needed better outfits, etc.) so we postponed that until Sunday morning.  The rest of the week was pretty normal--with significantly higher numbers of visitors.  On Friday night we did an encore presentation of the Messiah by the Tabernacle Choir.  It was a real chore to get the AV set up for streaming--but we finally got that done and had about 15 people join us for the sing-along.  Saturday started Conference weeked.  We watched at the desk (in English), while the Sisters watched in the Teatro Grande in Spanish.  We didn't do tours, just invited everyone to join us in listening to a prophet's voice.  It went great--all weekend!  Sunday morning at 8:45 we took our pictures.  It was really fun, because after the pictures, the sisters started taking pictures of each other.  It was kind of a hoot to watch them capturing each other on film!  I'm attaching the April picture below...