I'm in the New York Times!

I realize this blog is dedicated to Heiss History, but in this fast-paced world, sometimes history happens fast.

 Here is a portion of an article published in the New York Times about young women, Jessica Sagers, who was recently accepted for a PhD program at Harvard.

 Jessica was in my BYU Singles Ward for a year as I served as bishop. She was interview by the Times as part of an article to help paint a picture of the changing role of Mormon women. Here is what the Times wrote:

The block of ice cream was melting fast. Jessica Sagers, who returned from her mission last year fluent in Korean, worked quickly with her date, using a knife and a melon baller to sculpture the slab of vanilla into something that resembled a skull. In a room carpeted with plastic tarps at Brigham Young University, male-female pairs chiseled away, and then scooped their artwork into bowls to make sundaes topped with candy. Goofy icebreakers are customary even for cosmopolitan Mormons like Ms. Sagers, 23, who was then applying to a bioscience doctoral program at Harvard. It was a Saturday “date night” in her singles ward, the church’s answer to bars and nightclubs. At the age of 18, Mormons typically join a ward, or singles congregation, where those of marrying age gather for worship and social events. Without alcohol or coffee to lubricate the socializing (both are prohibited by the church’s Word of Wisdom), there are bowling outings, pie-eating contests, ballroom dancing lessons and, in traditional Mormon fashion, lots and lots of sweets." New York Time, March 1, 2014

The ice cream sculpting, bowling, pie-eating, ballroom dancing lessons were some of the many activities we did during our three and a half years of Ward Date Night. I feel this was a key to our ward’s 147 marriages.

I’m in the New York Times!