Circa 22 December 1841, JS dictated a revelation in , Illinois, instructing the to appoint to serve a mission. Fuller had relocated to , Iowa Territory, two years earlier. According to a note written by immediately before the featured text on the same page, Fuller told JS in December 1841 that he wanted “to know the will of God concerning him.” On 17 January 1842 the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles responded to this revelation by assigning Fuller to serve a mission in .

JS may have dictated this revelation to , who inscribed the aforementioned note and the featured text onto one side of a loose leaf of unlined paper. On that same page Richards inscribed another short revelation appointing to a proselytizing mission. The other side of the leaf includes a note, inscribed by Richards, of three donations to the dated 22 December 1841. This suggests that Richards recorded this revelation on the loose leaf that same day. Richards then copied the revelation (including the note preceding it) and the Snider revelation into the new JS journal that he was keeping in a large book titled “The Book of the Law of the Lord.” In the journal, Richards dated the Fuller and Snider revelations 22 December 1841, providing further evidence JS dictated them on or near that date.