For Church members in the 1830s, gathering the Saints and building the city of Zion were spiritual as well as temporal works, with many practical matters to address: Someone needed to purchase and distribute land where the Saints could settle. Someone needed to print books and other publications. And someone needed to run a store to provide goods to those in Zion. In the revelations recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 51–57, the Lord appointed and instructed people to handle these tasks, and He identified Independence, Missouri, as “the center place” of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 57:3). [Click on the picture to read more]
