Ok Sarahmanana...I'd like to try answering a few of your questions...the first...What is the Book Of Mormon?...well the Book of mormon is an account of everything that was happening in the Americas at the same time as the stuff in the Bible was happening in the Middle East...Ancient prophets wrote this scripture on stone and the ancient prophet Mormon is most responisible for editing, translating, and combining all the works of other ancient prophrts into one volume on stone, when he died his son finished up the last part...he buried it to protect it...then centuries later in the 1800's The angel Moroni came to Joseph Smith and told him to get the plates from the ground and he gave him a tool to translate them...Joseph Smith was an uneducated man who could never have written this book...he had hardly any schooling...so he translated the Book of Mormon and started The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints...our nickname is "mormon" because of The Book Of Mormon...
Your next question was about Zion...Well Jerusalem was the Zion in ancient times...but in the old Testament in Hebrews 11:9-16 it says this: "9 By faith he asojourned in the bland of cpromise•, as in a strange country, dwelling in dtabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
10 For he looked for a acity which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in amultitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.
13 These all died in faith, not having received the apromises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were bstrangers and pilgrims on the earth.
14 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a acountry.
15 And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.
16 But now they desire a better acountry, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city."
OK...Joseph Smith read this and he prayed to the Lord and asked him where this "New Jerusalem" was going to be...The Lord, through revelation told him it was to be in Jacson county Missouri...
The pure in heart; Zion also means a place where the pure in heart live. The city built by Enoch and his people that was eventually taken to heaven because of righteousness was named Zion In the latter-days a city named Zion will be built near Jackson County, Missouri (United States of America), to which the tribes of Israel will gather. The Saints are counseled to build up Zion wherever they are living in the world.
Hope this answers some of your questions...feel free to ask ANYTHING...I'd be glad to answer any of them...If you want some GREAT answers...you should contact the missionaries of the Church...they should be able to answer just about everything! If you want help contacting them or if you want a book of mormon I'd be happy to help you get any of these...it's really easy...hope this didn't sound too "preachy" And If you'd like to me to simply bear my testimony I'd do that too...I'm just hoping maybe you'll look into this church...it's a great way to live...