The experience among the Zoramites appears to have been some kind of a proving ground for the sons of Alma. This is not unlike the experience of Zion’s Camp in the early years of the church in this dispensation. Elder Wilford Woodruff says of that experience:
“When the members of Zion’s Camp were called, many of us had never beheld each others’ faces; we were strangers to each other and many had never seen the Prophet… . We gained an experience that we never could have gained in any other way. We had the privilege of beholding the face of the Prophet, and we had the privilege of traveling a thousand miles with him, and seeing the workings of the Spirit of God with him, and the revelations of Jesus Christ unto him and the fulfillment of those revelations… . Had I not gone up with Zion’s Camp I should not have been here today, and I presume that would have been the case with many others in this Territory ”(Wilford Woodruff. Journal of Discourses. 13:158).
It is frequently in the difficult assignments that our character is forged.