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Show the rank and file membership, the task of building Zion was real and consisted of three major activities: First, the initial, missionary stage of taking the gospel to the world (according to Mormon belief, a necessary task before the initiation of the eschaton); second, the act of bringing the Chosen out of Babylon to Zion; and third, the actual preparing of the earth for the expected millennium. The Mission to Babylon The first task in the Gathering of Zion involved announcing the restoration of Christ's Church to the peoples of the world. Not long after the church was officially organized at Fayette, New York, in 1830, missionary activity began. For Joseph Smith and his followers, proselytizing work assumed a sense of urgency, since the scriptures clearly indicated that the Last Days were upon them. Several passages from the Doctrine and Covenants, the offical record of Smith's revelations, clarify the essence of the missionary calling: For verily, verily, I say unto you that ye are called to lift up your voices as with the sound of a trump, to declare my gospel unto a wicked and perverse world. For behold, the field is white ready to harvest, and it is the eleventh hour, and the last time I shall call my laborers into the vineyard.lo During the fall of 1830, Mormon missionaries succeeded in converting a large group of disaffected Campbellites near Kirtland, Ohio, In a move designed to consolidate the church membership and attract further converts, Smith shifted the location of his church from New York State to Kirtland in Ohio's Western Reserve in the following year. 35 Kirtland |
