The Prophet, Moroni

We don't know how long the surviving Nephites were able to stay hidden on Cumorah.  We also don't know when Mormon's son, Moroni, left, carrying the precious records with him.  Remember, 1,000 years worth of records were still hidden in the depths of Cumorah's caves.  Moroni carried only his father's abridgment and a few precious relics.  I'm sure he also carried his bow, arrows, and sling to provide food for himself as he slipped through enemy lines (probably at night, although the text doesn't tell us).  He traveled ever northward to stay out of the reach of his enemies. 

Moroni wrote about this experience:

I make not myself known to the Lamanites lest they should destroy me.  For behold, their wars are exceedingly fierce among themselves; and because of their hatred they put to death every Nephite that will not deny the Christ.  And I, Moroni, will not deny the Christ; wherefore, I wander whithersoever I can for the safety of mine own life. (Moroni 1: 1-3)

Moroni wandered northward and eastward for 35 years.  Essentially, he was alone, although he undoubtedly preached the gospel of Christ to tribes met in North America who were not his enemies.  In the book He Walked the Americas author Taylor Hansen presents and extensive collection of traditions handed down from father to son for hundreds of years of a light-skinned prophet who taught a religion of faith, hope, and love.  This prophet may have been Jesus Christ Himself who said He would visit other sheep or it may have been Moroni, teaching the about Jesus Christ.  I wish we had a fuller account of Moroni's 35 year wanderings.

During those years, Moroni completed his father's record (Mormon), translated a small set of plates of a group who had occupied the area around Cumorah from the Tower of Babel (Ether), and wrote his own book (Moroni) in which he quoted from letters he had received from his father years before containing doctrine and ordinance.

As he approached the end of his life, he, being led by the Spirit, hid the plates away in a hill which Latter-day Saints have come to call Cumorah.  These were his last words were to the Lamanites:

Now I, Moroni, write somewhat as seemeth me good; and I write unto my brethren, the Lamanites . . . And I seal up these records, after I have spoken a few words by way of exhortation unto you . . .  And again, I exhort you, my brethren, that ye deny not the gifts of God, . . .  And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that every good gift cometh of Christ.  And I would exhort you, my beloved brethren, that ye remember that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and that all these gifts of which I have spoken, which are spiritual, never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand, only according to the unbelief of the children of men. (Moroni 10: 1-2, 8, 18-19)

 

And then he wrote to everyone on the earth who would read his words:

 

 And now I speak unto all the ends of the earth—that if the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief . . .  And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust? (Moroni 10: 24, 27)

 

And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead. Amen. (Moroni 10: 34)

 

Text copyright February 2014, Gebara Education

Quotes from the Book of Mormon, Moroni

 

Pictures

Mormon giving the plates to Moroni from www.ldsretailers.blogspot.com

Moroni fleeing from www.raifineart.com

Moroni burying the plates from www.lds.org