Introducing the adorable Amy Gheen

Amy was born in Provo the oldest child of 4 children. When she was 2 her parents moved their family to Orem where she lived until she was 14 years old. As a child she would play outside with her friends, but her absolute favorite thing to do was to read. In fact, if her parents really wanted to punish her, they would take away her books.

She attended Orem Jr. High school and while in Jr. High she made the girls basketball team. It was kind of amazing because she had never played basketball until she learned how in P.E. She was however good enough that she continued being on the basketball team until her Junior year of high school. Her career ended when she tore her ACL while playing on a carpeted church floor. It was right before try-outs and it put her out for the season, which turned into being finished.  But tearing her ACL turned out to be a blessing.  After several months of physical therapy, Amy knew what she wanted to study when she got to college.

When she was 14, her parents decided they wanted a little better neighborhood for their children so they moved their kids to Lindon and Amy to Pleasant Grove high school. At the time Amy was angry that they were going to move. But over time she realized it was a very good thing for her family and she herself ended up with a better group of friends. She was also on seminary council during her Senior year.

Amy discovered she liked a couple of things. One was to work for money. She got her first job as a bagger at Macey's grocery store. Also during the summer she taught swimming lessons. These jobs gave her a surprising amount of socializing and she loved saving her money for when she could attend BYU. The other thing she really liked was Math. She took the AP Calculus class. She loved it because she felt like the class was a big study club, getting together after class to figure out the puzzle of Math. She also enjoyed her AP History, English, and Physics classes.  

After Amy graduated, she went to BYU opting for living on campus. While in high school she had had a friend who was on a ballroom dance team. She had taken Amy to watch her competitions and Amy really liked them. So at BYU she took every ballroom dance class she could for fun. It was better though to have a partner when entering the class. The first class she was in, her partner's name was Paul. They had a great time but the next year Paul had a different partner. He recommended to Amy that she partner up with his brother. So she did, and they liked each other so much they started dating and eventually married in the Salt Lake Temple.

They both continued their education at BYU.  After a while, after much prayer and pondering, Amy changed her major from Physical Therapy/Sports Medicine to History because it didn’t make sense to spend all the money on the required graduate degree if she wasn’t to be the family breadwinner.  So, 2 ½ years after they were married, Amy graduated from BYU and the couple welcomed their first child into their home a couple of weeks later. A daughter they named Lucy. That year, Amy started being a stay-at-home mom and her husband began a Master’s degree program at BYU. It was an adjustment at first but she loved all the time she had for reading. About 2 years later they had their second child Nathan.

After her husband graduated, he wanted to go on for a Ph.D so they moved to Bloomington, Indiana. Amy loved the midwest. She loved the humidity, the laid back culture and the fireflies. She loved how the ward was family and that they clung together. She even enjoyed having 3 callings at the same time. Also while living in Indiana they added 2 more children to their family, Grace and Spencer.

After Indiana, Amy's husband needed additional training and went for a Post-doctoral Fellowship at Boystown Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. Although still in the Midwest, Amy didn't love Nebraska as much. It was a bigger city and bigger ward. She was also having a very difficult time in her marriage. But the bright side of it was Amy was only 25 minutes away from a temple. She feels that the Lord sent them there just so she could be close to a temple. While in Omaha, a daughter, Madeline came to their family.

Finally, after all the schooling, her husband got a real job at the University of Iowa as a professor and they moved. It was a smaller town and Amy loved it as much as she had loved Indiana. They lived there 8 years.  She loved serving in the Primary, and in the Relief Society in that ward and made many, many life-long friends.  They added two more kids to their brood, James and Rebekah for a total of 7 children. It was while living in Iowa that things in Amy's life started really falling apart, or perhaps in place.

Her husband had battled a pornography addiction since he was 13 years old. Finally he quit battling. He told her he didn't believe the church was true anymore and wanted something different out of his life.  In August of 2011, he left the family.  The divorce proceedings were lengthy, but were gratefully concluded the following May.  Due to the unhealthy and abusive nature of the parent/child relationship, her children did not want to have anything to do with their dad.  So, Amy had the kids with her full-time, which she considered a real blessing.  Although Amy was now on her own with 7 kids, she actually didn't mind. In fact she found being a single mother was much easier than her life had been pretending that everything was ok in her marriage. She said in one of her previous wards someone had told her, « You're the perfect family. » She thought, « No, we are a family that looks like a perfect apple, but on the inside is completely rotten. » She felt so relieved to be free of pretension and stress that she had no desire to date.

After 2 years of single life, she was reading an illustrated story of the Bible to one of her kids. It was the story of the children of Israel sending spies into the land of Canaan. Two of the spies came back with a good report that the land was indeed a land of milk and honey. The other spies came back and told everyone about the huge giants they would have to get by in order to obtain the land. They didn't feel like it was possible. At this time the Spirit whispered to Amy, « If you trust me, I can help you get to the promised land. Otherwise, you can just continue to wander around in the wilderness. » She knew he was talking about dating and remarrying.  So with faith, she took a step.

After consulting with some friends about the best way to do online dating to keep her and her kids safe, she registered for a 3 month account on ldssingles.com. She told the Lord if she was going to do this, she would give it her all. So everyday she made herself contact or comment on a person's profile. She never really even cared if they responded back until she found a man's profile named Michael Gheen.

Meanwhile, Michael had been actively seeking a wife for the last 27 years. He, in exasperation one night, told the Lord he had done everything he could to find his eternal companion. The Spirit whispered to him that there was one thing he hadn't done yet. So he also signed up for an account on ldssingles.com.

When Amy first contacted Michael he was out of town, so he didn't get back to her right away, but when he did, he wrote her a page long message about what he thought he knew about her from her message and profile. Amy was intrigued, he was dead on. They wrote back and forth for 5 days and then decided to meet. Michael flew to Iowa. Amy decided she absolutely would not sugar coat her life Whoever was interested in her would need to know what it was like to live in a family with 7 children. During his week visit everything was with the kids, including back to school night.

After Michael returned to Utah they continued to write and call. A month later Madeline was getting baptized and wanted Michael to baptize her. He flew out again. The following month, Amy and her kids drove out to Utah for Thanksgiving with family. During the holiday Michael proposed. They however didn't set a date because they wanted to get married in the temple. It would all depend on when Amy could get her sealing canceled. On February 1st, Amy had her cancelation and in mid-March 2014, they were married.

Michael moved out to Iowa so the kids could finish out the school year. They also started the necessary paperwork for Amy to leave Iowa with the kids and move to Utah. At this point, even though he had had no contact with the children, Amy's ex-husband started pushing back. He was not going to let her take the kids and leave. In a last ditch effort, right before they were to all leave, they went into mediation. Through a series of events in the mediation that can only be called a miracle, her ex- husband went from being adamant about the kids not leaving to being willing to drop everything and even to consider relinquishing his rights to the children so they could be adopted by Michael.

Meanwhile, they were cleared to move to Utah.  They originally moved to Michael’s home in American Fork, where they lived for the first several months.  But that wasn’t really a home the right size for an instant family of 9.  They finally found a home in Fruit Heights. The family continued to pray that Amy’s ex-husband would follow through with his promise to relinquish his parental rights and allow Michael to adopt the kids.  They were all overjoyed when Amy's ex-husband signed the paperwork at the end of November.  The attorneys handling the case warned the family to expect a several-month wait to get on the judge’s docket calendar. They were so surprised when the attorney called back a few hours after filing the case and said that a Davis County Judge had a cancellation and could they possibly appear before the judge on December 2nd?  The family was ecstatic!  But cautious as well, they weren't sure if the adoption could go through so fast because they hadn't been married a year yet. At the proceedings the judge asked Michael why he wanted to adopt these kids. Tears filled Michael's eyes and he said, « Because I love them. » All the kids gave their consent, they wanted Michael to be their Dad.  Twenty minutes later the judge signed all the paperwork, making the emotional connection a legal connection as well.

Although, they now had a wonderful forever family, they weren't really happy living in Fruit Heights. They started thinking that although they had just bought their home 8 months ago, maybe they needed to move. They started looking around and found our neighborhood. They liked how down to earth everyone seemed and accepting. They felt so good about their house that they bought it and moved into our ward.  Shortly after moving into the ward, the family welcomed little Benjamin into the family.

I asked Amy if she were to give her younger self advice what would she say. She told me President Holland said what she would say best in a talk he gave in general conference. He said, « Cling to your faith. Hold to your hope. Pray always and be believing. Don't give up. Don't you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead – a lot of it. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come. »

I find Amy to be the kindest of souls. She is loving and a great listener. Her life experience enriches the talents she brings to our ward. I sincerely hope you will take the time to get to know her. I hope you will find, just like I did, that I'm better off for it.