When someone in an active Mormon family enters the Borderlands, resulting stresses can weaken and overwhelm the family. Many react in ways that reduce family love and cohesiveness, sometimes even destroying the family through divorce or estrangement. This session will first provide stories of family-related tensions and difficulties some Borderlanders have encountered. Panel and audience members will then consider important questions: How should parents react when a doubting teenager announces he cannot go on a mission? How can a family support an emerging Borderlander through the trauma and heartbreak of the experience? What should we do with a family member we suspect is in the Borderlands but pretends otherwise? If you are in the Borderlands, closeted or not, what can you do to preserve family unity?

D. Jeff Burton, John Dehlin, Adam Fisher, Lilly Shults, Suzann Werner