The foundation of that isn't some ideal of romantic love. It's a commitment based on the goals you share. And real love, married love, is not what you start with -- it's what you create together along the way.

How foolish, when our young people wait to find love, or to have God show them their foreordained mate, instead of rationally looking at the eligible people and choosing someone who can and will live up to the commitment of marriage, someone with shared faith, someone with whom you can establish friendship and affection.

All marriages are between strangers. And sometimes it's the boring man who'll make the best husband, the plain woman who'll make the best mother.

It takes time to come to know the other person; it take time for each of you to become someone new and different and perfectly adapted to the other. You'll be there through the whole process, though, because your commitment is stronger than the bands of death.

But as that knowledge grows, so does the real love, the deep love. Compared to the thick, strong fabric of married love, romantic love is a Kleenex. You can't make anything out of it. It's disposable -- there's always another in the box.

We visit teach because we've made covenants with the Lord, and they are fulfilled as we share our hearts and souls. We visit teach to extend charity, which is the "highest, noblest, strongest kind of love." Visiting teaching is all about family. As we show charity to those we serve, we become family by affection. We all belong to the Lord's family, and when we serve sisters—and through them their families—we strengthen the family as designed in the heavens.

When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.