“On July 26, 1847, just a few days after the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, President Brigham Young and a small group of priesthood leaders climbed a hill north of the area that would later become Salt Lake City. They named the hill Ensign Peak in remembrance of the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far . . . and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly’ (Isaiah 5:26). President Young later identified this hill as the place he had seen in a vision, a place where the Saints would flourish, where the kingdom of God could be built and the latter-day Israel gathered. In the years that followed, missionaries took the message of the gospel throughout the world, and thousands of newly converted Saints came to the Salt Lake Valley. Today the building of the kingdom and the gathering of Israel goes on in hundreds of nations” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 323).
Isaiah 5:26
26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly . . .
President Brigham Young said:
“The gathering of Israel is so important a part of the great work in which we are engaged that it occupies much of our thoughts, and we are ever anxious to afford it all just facilities and influence.”
(Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young [1997], 323.)
