| This dissertation explored the social structure of family within LDS congregations and argued that ward families are special types of kinship networks. Ward families are woven together by an ethic of care that enables their members to consider fellow congregants as family. Although this capacious idea and lived experience of family is in direct contrast to the official Church rhetoric of family as found in "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," the phenomena of ward families illustrates how applying an extended and flexible idea of family in group settings produces caring and cohesive communities.
Within Mormonism a heteronormative model of family is a necessary part of Church doctrine and ritual, but it is not sufficient for creating cohesive communities. The findings in this study thereby challenge the argument that only a heteronormative model of family supports strong communities. Although maintaining kinship networks hinges upon recognizing others as kin, meaning some are left out, ward families are inclusive and able to recognize that they are part of a human family.
The ethic of care that binds ward families together is constructed through a combination of LDS doctrine, history, and bureaucratic form. The LDS doctrine of family includes embodied heavenly parents who beget humankind as spirit-children. LDS temple ritual enables generations of families to be bound together in the eternities, and Mormon doctrine claims that only those married in the temple will gain the highest level of heaven thereby making the family a necessary element in salvation and the afterlife.
Mormon pioneer history contains the practice of polygamy, an experimental model of family, and narratives of communities working together to build a new home in the West. Throughout all of Mormon history, joining the LDS Church often means being alienated from one's biological family and friends, as such, fellow believers are often embraced as a surrogate family.
The LDS bureaucratic structure of lay leadership establishes callings that instill a duty to care for others. Service becomes an institutionally constructed disposition and a part of an LDS lifestyle--being a Mormon means serving God by serving others, and seeing humankind as kin. | 
