John the Beloved and the Three Nephites were translated. They were allowed to live on, to minister on earth, to continue their apostolic duties among the children of men until their Lord returned in glory at the time of his second coming.
In speaking of Enoch, the antediluvian prophet-patriarch who also had been translated some three thousand years before Christ, Joseph Smith said: “Now this Enoch God reserved unto Himself, that he should not die at that time, and appointed unto him a ministry unto terrestrial bodies, of whom there has been but little revealed. He is reserved also unto the presidency of a dispensation, and more shall be said of him and terrestrial bodies in another treatise. He is a ministering angel, to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation....
Many have supposed that the doctrine of translation was a doctrine whereby men were taken immediately into the presence of God and into an eternal fullness, but this is a mistaken idea. Their place of habitation is that of the terrestrial order and a place prepared for such characters He held in reserve to be ministering angels unto many planets, and who as yet have not entered into so great a fullness as those who are resurrected from the dead. ’Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.’ (See Hebrews 11:35.)”