Twenty-Eight (1833)the early LDS men were the ones laboring and supporting the Church, while the more
ignorantly audacious and ego-centered men were given leadership positions, because they
desired them. These early leaders of the Church were often sent on missions away from the
centralized locale of the Church where the humble people lived, worked, and supported the
temporal needs of the Church.
Using Mission Calls to Keep the Peace
Joseph didn’t like Brigham Young’s personality from the day he met him. Because the
newly organized church established at Kirtland, Ohio already had problems from the ego-based
contentions of Edward Partridge and Sidney Rigdon, Joseph knew that another strong
personality would cause even more problems at home. So “the Lord” sent Young to Canada on
a mission. LDS Historians have claimed that Brigham Young was so beloved and trusted by the
Prophet that Joseph sent him on many missions and assignments away from him. They could
not have reported the facts further from the truth. A mission call often meant that Joseph
perceived a possibility that a person would cause problems in one of the organized Stakes of the
Church where that person participated as a member.^50 Nevertheless, Joseph always sent the
missionaries off with a very important mandate, which they seldom adhered to:
And again, the elders, priests and teachers of this church shall teach the
principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, in the
which is the fulness of the gospel.^51He repeated it again, twice, in June of 1831:
And let them journey from thence preaching the word by the way, saying
none other things than that which the prophets and apostles have written,
and that which is taught them by the Comforter through the prayer of faith.
...Let them labor with their families, declaring none other things than the
prophets and apostles, that which they have seen and heard and most
assuredly believe, that the prophecies may be fulfilled.^52“Looking Beyond the Mark” Led to Persecution
To the early saints, the “fullness of the gospel” had never quite become the words of the
Savior as they were delivered to the ancient American inhabitants and to the Jews.^53 The
“gospel” had become the carnal expressions of faith now included as the Church, its
priesthoods, its ordinances, its prophecies, its revelations, its doctrines, its precepts, and its
philosophies of men mingled with scripture.^54 The people looked “beyond the mark”^55 of living
to love one’s neighbor as they do themselves and doing unto others, to desiring a religion and a
church. They did not listen to Joseph when he explained the Book of Mormon prophecy regarding
the “city of Zion.”^56 They chose not to follow Joseph’s council to say “none other things than
[what] the prophets and apostles [had] written”^57 concerning the “everlasting gospel.”^58 If they
had changed their ways, they would not have been persecuted, mobbed, and driven out of the
State of Missouri with an extermination order signed by its governor and enforced by four
hundred mounted men “if necessary for the public good.”^59 They would have endeared