Kirtland as a Center of Missionary Activity, 1830-1838

Beginning to hum with the good news of the restoration of the gospel at the end of 1830, Kirtland soon became the unquestioned center of the new Church’s proselyting. By January 1831 there was a congregation of about one hundred there—apparently more than the total membership in the New York branches—and in May the New York saints began to move into the Kirtland area. By June, according to rough estimates, there were several hundred members of the Church, the majority of whom lived in Kirtland and its vicinity. For a brief, exciting period Kirtland was the nerve center of Mormonism’s proselyting activity, the center where more than anywhere else the Lord was extending the saints’ understanding. Those who had been part of it—Jared Carter, Lorenzo Barnes, Wilford Woodruff, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, David Patten, and many others—would never forget.