When Bautista pushed his interest in early Mormon religious practices such as the United Order and plural marriage, other leaders in the Third Convention expelled him from their movement.

After his baptism, Bautista worked closely with Tenney to preach and convert Mexicans, as he received further ordinations Latter-day Saint priesthood offices and was ordained an elder by December 1901.

[4] Around the time of Bautista's conversion, large numbers Latter-day Saints lived in Mexico in settlements, the results of a colonization project started in the late-nineteenth century.

[5][6] Church leaders had encouraged members to settle in Mexico to avoid prosecution by the federal government of the United States for practicing plural marriage, a form of religious polygyny, in violation of anti-polygamy laws.

[6] In the early 1900s, the church was in the middle of a transition between endorsing plural marriage and ending it, so many Anglo-American Latter-day Saints still lived in Mexico in "Mormon colonies.

"[4][6][7] Bautista spent time living in these Latter-day Saint settlements, moving between multiple Mexican colonies and becoming introduced to the practice of polygamy.

[9] During this time, Bautista also began more openly teaching interpretations of the Book of Mormon and of Latter-day Saint doctrine that took inspiration from Mexican nationalism.

[4] After Bautista finished his mission in Mexico, he found himself without an official leadership role in the church and thus without a position from which to preach Latter-day Saint doctrine.

[11] Church leaders in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries generally took this claim seriously and often used the word "Lamanite" to refer to indigenous peoples in North and South America.

[3][13][11] Instead, Bautista used the Book of Mormon and other Latter-day Saint teachings about Lamanites selectively, focusing on promised blessings and claims of pre-conquest Christianity, much as missionaries might.

[13][11] When Bautista approached church leaders in Utah, however, they rejected La evolución on the grounds that it made claims beyond the scope of official doctrine.

[11][13] Disillusioned by the institutional church's rejection of La Evolución, Bautista moved with his family back to Mexico and there found support from local Latter-day Saints to publish the book between 1935 and 1936.

[11][1] Bautista and the other convencionistas resolved to continue gathering and worshipping as Latter-day Saints by forming their own independent Mormon sect, this time led by full-blooded Mexicans.

[1][13] Although the convencionista break-off focused predominantly on questions of indigenous leadership and did not differ from mainline Latter-day Saint teachings outside of embracing La Evolución, a few weeks into the schism Bautista began proposing more pronounced divergence.

[1][14] For the next several years, Bautista wrote and published theological pamphlets encouraging Mexican Latter-day Saints to leave the mainline church and join the convencionistas.

[1][14] In 1942, Bautista moved to Ozumba, Mexico, and he began making contact with bankers, Mexican legislators, and even President Lázaro Cárdenas to gather land and resources to support his own colonia settlement project.

In August 1947, fifty-nine convencionistas and four leaders (Lorenzo Cuautli, Leonardo Belmont, Francisco Sandoval, and Candido de la Cruz) who also abstained from the reconciliation joined Bautista in the municipality of Ozumba.

[14] Under Bautista's leadership, Colonia Industrial practiced communitarian economics inspired by the early church's United Order, placing private property in a community trust that titled deeds back to families based on need.

[18][19] In the mid-to-late-twentieth century, most Latter-day Saints and scholars of Mormon history believed Bautista's sect and Colonia Industrial had dwindled away after his death and nearly collapsed by 1983, based on a claim from Lozano.

The religious sect Bautista founded had adopted the legal name of El Reino de Dios en su Plenitud (The Kingdom of God in its Fulness), though members called themselves Mormons.

[16] As recently as 2011, 800 people still live in Colonia Industrial, hold property in common through a community trust, and practice plural marriage, continuing Bautista's teachings.