About six months ago, Pres. Dyer had a meeting with the stake presidents and other leaders to ask how the temple could best serve the members in this area. Among the suggestions were to have early morning sessions so people could come before they go to work. They wanted morning sessions so women with children could come while their children were in school. Both of these sounded like valid reasoning. Soon it became evident that there was a problem, so statistics on temple attendance, both of workers and of patrons, have been kept.
Worker statistics looked good--we see that we have a group of dedicated men and women who give of their time and often make great financial sacrifice to come for their shifts. The patron attendance numbers, however, caused the presidency great concern, with averages of 1.4 patrons per session for the"madrugadas, " and not much better than that for other morning sessions.
Finally Pres. Dyer, with approval of the Temple Department, including members of the Quorum of the Twelve, has presented a new schedule which became effective November 4, 2008.

There will still be a session for those who want to come before work--on Tuesday morning at 5:30 AM. There will also be the sessions at 9:00 A.M. Tuesday and Friday especially for the groups of Relief Society sisters come with the little grandmothers and for people who want to be sealed for time and eternity before noon and then have their big party at night. Evening sessions are good for "date nights" for husbands and wives and most wards that come as groups do so in the evening. Saturday sessions were not changed; out-of-town groups come all during the morning and the evenings are for the stakes in Mérida.
Two weeks into the new schedule, we see that there is more time for the behind the scenes work of the temple to be done. The Wednesday and Thursday morning workers have rearranged their schedules so we have more workers available, which is very helpful. The wards are responding to the invitations to organize groups to come and they may use their own members as workers, which brings a wonderful spirit into the temple.
Once Gerhard commented to Rüder, his brother, that the Temple is like a city with many systems that function together to keep things going smoothly. Good scheduling and effective communication between all the groups involved are important for smooth functioning, just as are the electricity and plumbing and other facilities.
The bottom line, however, is that this is not the work of men, but it is the Lord's work and has to be done in His way and with His help. We are always mindful of that fact.