Editor's note: The following is excerpted from Chapter 4 of the book "The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith," by Matthew Bowman, published this week by Random House. Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Bowman. All rights reserved. If the Mormons saw themselves as a new Israel, the trek west was inevitably their Exodus. For generations of Mormons, including the one that walked across the prairies, what mattered more than the destination was the act of the journey. It was a collective rite of passage that thousands of Mormons endured, as they had learned to endure all suffering: the death of their prophet, their flight from Ohio and Missouri, and their march across the plains all were taken as divinely sent education, clarifying and refining, testing the bonds that the temple ordinances had created, and they saw God's hand in every bush of berries. Many Mormons were rebaptized upon reaching Utah; they had traveled not only from the United States to the Utah territory but also from the secular realm to God's promised land, reborn into a sacred world. The banks and courts still close in Utah on July 24, the day Brigham Young crossed into the Salt Lake Valley, and the Mormons there celebrate it still, though the number of those who have ancestors who walked across the plains is a fading minority. They have become an archetype.

If you thought Team Obama was having a rough time figuring out how best to handle Mitt Romney’s presidential run, consider the plight of the poor Latter-day Saints. Despite the growth and gradual mainstreaming of Mormonism in recent years, the church is still regarded by many as disconcertingly exotic. Now, with the very real possibility that one of its own could wind up in the Oval Office, the LDS finds itself scrambling to adjust to life in the global spotlight.

Recently, KSL highlighted an LDS artist, Jolynn Forman, who uses cold wax and oil paints to create fanciful and stunning works of art.

Voters are likely to know two things about Mitt Romney: that he’s rich and that he’s a Mormon. At the same time, more than one fifth of Americans tell pollsters they won’t vote for a Mormon for president. Yet if Americans understood Mormonism a little better, they might begin to think of Romney’s faith as a feature, not a bug, in the Romney candidacy. If anything, Romney’s religion may be the best offset to the isolation from ordinary people imposed by his wealth. It was Romney’s faith that sent him knocking on doors as a missionary—even as his governor father campaigned for the presidency of the United States. It was Romney’s position as a Mormon lay leader that had him sitting at kitchen tables doing family budgets during weekends away from Bain Capital. It was Romney’s faith that led him and his sons to do chores together at home while his colleagues in the firm were buying themselves ostentatious toys.

A brother and sister are home after leaving their Mormon missions to prepare for a funeral Friday to honor their parents and two younger brothers, who died together Saturday night from carbon monoxide poisoning.

In his most recent music video, Alex Boyé teamed up with the Five Strings, a group of LDS siblings, to create this free and beautiful version of "Amazing Grace," with some of the text sung in Swahili.

"Eighty-two million people have watched you," Steve Harvey told Claire Ryann Crosby about her viral YouTube videos. "That's more than my entire 32-year career."

There's a reason why the Mormons fielded two top candidates in a single presidential election cycle and there's a reason why the comparatively small church is surging to prominence worldwide. Primarily, it's the fact that they inculcate within their teenagers the idea of mandatory service. From age nineteen to twenty-one, young Mormon men are encouraged to serve on a mission which they themselves largely subsidize by working in their teen years. Many Mormon women also do a mission beginning at 21 for about eighteen months. And what does a mission do? It teaches them altruism and selflessness, not to mention going beyond a natural shyness and learning to approach complete strangers about their beliefs. The approximately 52,000 Mormon missionaries are not allowed to call home other than Christmas and Mother's Day and communicate with loved ones with a single weekly email.

At the start of this year, I got tired of not being able to see the world. So, with careful financial planning, I began my efforts to hit my goal of visiting six continents in six months. I’m already up to three!

After exercising, scripture study, tracting, teaching, helping others, and making meals, missionaries don't have that much spare time in a day. They spend all of it focusing on others and the Lord.