Episode 891: Amy Thelin — Bisexual Latter-day Saint, Upcoming Same-Sex Marriage

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Amy Thelin (who grew up in Virginia, served in Tahiti Papeete Mission, taught at the Missionary Training Center, and graduated from Brigham Young University) joins us to share her story. Amy reflects on the deeply spiritual experiences that led her to become active in the Church and serve a mission, motivated by her desire to help others feel the love of Christ. Amy also talks about returning home from her mission, transferring to BYU, earning a degree in Human Development, and later teaching at the MTC. She then shares what it was like to finally “take her sexuality off the shelf” and begin honestly addressing it after years of keeping herself busy to avoid it. Through prayer, scripture study, temple attendance, and personal revelation, Amy came to feel peace about her path forward—including the feeling that “dating girls is good for you.” She talks about falling in love with Melanie and the excitement surrounding their upcoming wedding in June 2026. Amy also discusses navigating these experiences while attending BYU, including both meaningful and difficult moments, as well as the grief she feels in not being able to fully participate in the Church. Amy and Melanie share their hope of finding ward leaders and church communities where they can feel loved, accepted, spiritually safe, and connected to Jesus Christ—a simple hope to “just be OK to be here.” Thank you, Amy, for being on the podcast and for the many lives you have blessed and will continue to bless. I hope for better days ahead for queer members of the Church—days where they can feel loved, accepted, needed, and valued. You are awesome, and you have a beautiful life ahead of you. Links:

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard
0:07.8	Osler. To introduce my guest, let me just read the email I got from my guest. My name is Amy.
0:15.8	She thanks for me for being a listener of the podcast and helped her. I am graduating in three weeks from
0:23.9	BYU and now that we're recording, that's happened. Amy graduated a couple weeks ago and I'm
0:30.6	getting married in June to my fiance, Melanie. I came out as bisexual while at BYU and feel I have some unique experience to share on how I navigated, still navigating my faith sexuality, and then just wonders if I could be on the podcast.
0:47.4	And when I get an email like that, listeners, I'm just so grateful that someone had the courage to find my email.
0:53.0	It's in the podcast notes. If you're wondering where my email is, that had the courage to find my email. It's in the podcast notes.
0:54.5	If you're wondering where my email is, that's how you can find my email and just reach out and want to share her story.
1:00.8	Anyway, welcome to the podcast.
1:02.9	Amy, um, you taught, wait, wait, I'm going to get your name right.
1:08.4	Feeling.
1:10.0	Feeling, yep, you got it. Tell us how to spell both your names and how to pronounce your name right. Feeling. Feeling, yep. You got it.
1:11.6	Tell us how to spell both your names and how to pronounce your second name that I just kind of botched.
1:16.6	My first name is simple, A-M-Y, three letters, but last name is T-H-E-L-I-N, and it's
1:24.6	feeling, like how you feel feeling, sister, feeling.
1:28.7	I love that.
1:29.6	How you feeling?
1:32.4	Amy graduated in human development, as I mentioned from BYU.
1:36.4	And she, her next step is to be, is a master's of social work.
1:41.2	And she's applying to schools on the East Coast, where she's from,
1:44.7	and she wants to be a therapist, and I love therapists. My therapist really helps me,
1:50.3	and I've grown to see the impact and importance of therapists. She's served a mission in
	...

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