Special Issue:
Loving Your Family

Loving your family.

That simple phrase contains two words very difficult to define—love and family.

Poets and songwriters have tried, since the beginning of time, to pin down what love means. The best they can do is end up with little pieces of definitions, fragments of the experience. But the best definition of all, even if you can’t put it into words, is what you feel.

And family is another word in search of a definition. Is family the people you live with in your house? Does family extend to a larger group that share a common ancestor? Or is family a much larger concept? Can family define the bond between people who share a lifelong interest in each other’s lives?

This special issue of the New Era on family lets you in on some other people’s experiences, some wonderful and some difficult, as they have learned to live with and love their families. Check out the articles on how to figure out your parents, or the ones on getting along with brothers and sisters. Listen to some wise advice from Church leaders about understanding your family. Play the family game and discover some new things about each other.

When you finish reading the family issue, we hope you’ll look at those special people in your life, your family, with new eyes and new understanding. Maybe family is like love—you know it when you feel it. Perhaps that is why the highest compliment you can pay a friend is to say, “He (or she) is like family to me.”