Alma and the sons of Mosiah are all converted, although we hear little of the nature of the conversion of the sons of Mosiah.
A part of their conversion process spiritually required them to attempt to undo the damage they had done, and so they travel through the land “publishing to all the people the things which they had heard and seen.” Nevertheless, they are not met with universal approval.
Certainly those who were believers would have accepted them with open arms, but what of the non-believers? How would they have been received by those with whom they used to be co-believers, and against whom they were now preaching?
We may easily understood that this situation created the condition where they would be “preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them.”