After the king was converted he sent a proclamation throughout the land forbidding any and all from persecuting Ammon and his fellow-missionaries, giving them liberty to preach anywhere and everywhere that they desired. Our readers may be sure that this privilege was not neglected. To use Ammon's own words, the missionaries entered into the houses of the people and taught them; they taught them in their temples and synagogues, in the open streets and on the lofty hills. But often they were cast out, spit upon, smitten, stoned, bound, cast into prison and made to suffer all manner of afflictions, from which the Lord, in his mercy, delivered them and from which the king's proclamation afterward protected them. Nor was the result of their labors trifling, but glorious in the saving of many thousand souls; for unto the Lord were converted the people of the Lamanites who dwelt in the lands of Ishmael, Middoni, Shilom and Shemlon, and in the cities of Nephi, Lemuel and Shimnilon; and they became a righteous, peaceful, God-serving people; and from faithful obedience to his law they never fell away. But the various bodies of Nephite apostates who dwelt among the Lamanites universally rejected the gospel message, with the exception of one single Amalekite, and of what ultimately became of him we have no record. History often repeats itself, but we have no recollection of any parallel to the events that followed this marvelous conversion. The Lamanite people now became two as distinct and separate bodies as they and the Nephites had beforetimes been. But with this strange complication, the apostate Nephites now occupied the place and did the work of the natural Lamanites, while the true descendants of Laman and Lemuel took the ground previously held by the righteous Nephites. So clearly defined did the division become that the supreme ruler (Lamoni's father), having turned from the tradition, habits and customs of the Lamanites, was determined to also cast aside the old name. If they were Lamanites in name only they would cut that weak cord which alone held them to the past, and be as new in name as they were in feelings, hopes, loyalty and religion. So, after advising with Ammon and his fellow-missionaries, he gave to his people the name of Anti-Nephi-Lehies, and to his son, to whom he transferred the royal power, that of Anti-Nephi-Lehi.