Great news! 90% of smokers have kicked the habit!

A July 5, 2021, Instagram post from Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Try to Be Less Mormon:

With the re-opening of the Kyiv Ukraine Temple today, every temple in the world has now reopened and resumed some level of operations! We may now serve and worship the Lord in these sacred edifices the world over and participate in precious ordinances. This is cause for celebration!

I will never forget the day near the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic when we had to make the excruciating decision to close the temples. The rapid spread of the virus made this decision inevitable, but it was a painful one. I couldn’t help but wonder how the Prophet Joseph Smith and all of my predecessors would feel about the action we were taking.

But now, with the temples open, our work for those on both sides of the veil can be resumed. To have all our temples reopened, at least to some degree, is a cause for rejoicing.

I am grateful for the many scientists, health care workers, and leaders who have stemmed the tide of this virus such that we can now safely gather in larger numbers. And I thank you, my dear brothers and sisters, for your patience and worthiness to serve.

May we cherish the blessings of the House of the Lord and attend the temple as often as our circumstances permit.

"Every temple in the world has now reopened and resumed some level of operations." Ah, the ambiguity of the present perfect! The naïve reader may take it to mean that every LDS temple in the world is currently open and operating at some level -- which I know for a fact is not true, because every house of worship in Taiwan, including the Taipei Temple, is currently closed by government diktat. What President Nelson actually means is that every temple has, after being shut down in early 2020, reopened at some point for some period of time, though several of them have since been shut down again. In other words, he is using the present perfect in the sense exemplified by the old joke:

A: I think you should give up smoking.

B: But I have -- lots of times!

To which A, if his name were Russell M. Nelson, would reply, "This is cause for celebration!"

The Church News article reporting on President Nelson's post adds this clarification:

Note: The Kyiv Ukraine Temple, which reopened today, July 5, is the last of the faith’s 160 operating temples to resume worship since all closed at the onset of the pandemic. Because COVID-19 conditions vary widely around the world, temple operations are adjusted weekly and temporarily paused when necessary. Worship in 10 temples is currently paused and will resume as soon as local conditions allow. Another eight temples are closed for renovation.

So 10 temples remain closed for the birdemic -- but, hey, at least each of them reopened for a while before being closed again! A cause for rejoicing!

In fact, even if 100% of the temples were currently open and operating again, that still wouldn't be cause for celebration, because they would be open only contingently, on the understanding that they could be shut down at any time, with or without government compulsion, in response to "the rapid spread of a virus" or whatever the next phantom menace happens to be. President Nelson's remarks make it clear that he has not repented, does not feel that his decision was wrong, and would do it again in similar circumstances. Although he makes a token reference to searching his soul and wondering what Joseph Smith would think, in the end he still maintains that the closure of all temples -- well in advance of any government compulsion -- was "inevitable." That's a pretty funny word to use for something that had never happened before in the history of the world!