Jesus had not said when he would return, save it were “on the morrow.” There were no hourglasses to tell the time of day, and the people were undoubtedly anxious to make sure they missed nothing of the divine visit.
Therefore, the crowd had gathered, but Jesus had not yet come. The twelve divided the people into groups so that each one of the twelve could teach a smaller congregation. One of the things they did was to pray. They were to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, and that might have been one of the important teachings, as the understanding of the Godhead would have been new to those who had not been there on the previous day.
Verse 1 names the twelve. We don’t hear the names again, save for Nephi. The most interesting name is Timothy, not because of the name, but because we learn that Nephi had raised him from the dead, something not otherwise attested to in our text.