1 Nephi 5

Both of my parents were filled with joy when we returned. While we were gone, my mother Sariah was convinced that our lives had been lost on our quest to regain the brass plates. She had complained bitterly to my father, saying he was a dreamer. “You have taken us from our homes, my sons have died, and surely we will also die in this wilderness,” she said.

“I know I am a dreamer,” my father replied, “but if I hadn’t seen God in a vision, I wouldn’t have known of his goodness. We would have stayed in Jerusalem and died with everyone else. But now we will obtain a land of promise, and I know that God will return our sons unharmed.”

After we returned my mother said, “Now I know for sure that God has commanded us to leave our home, has protected my sons, and given them the power to accomplish their mission.”

Sacrifices and offerings of thanks were made to God for our safe return.

Lehi read the plates and determined that they were a true record of God’s creation of the Earth. They told of the creation of our earliest ancestors, Adam and Eve, and gave a history of the Jewish people from the beginning of the world to the present time of King Zedekiah. They also contained the prophecies of the holy prophets since the beginning of the world. We learned from a genealogy in the records that our family was descended from Jacob’s son Joseph1 who had been sold into slavery in Egypt. God had saved Joseph and put him in a position to preserve his family and their household from perishing during the famine that followed many years later. We learned that Joseph’s descendant, Moses, had led his people out of Egypt, guided by the same God that now guided our family.

When my father saw all of this, he was filled with the Spirit and began to prophesy. “These records will go forth to all nations and races who are descendants of mine. They will not perish or be dimmed by the passage of time.”

We came to see the wisdom of God’s command that we retrieve and safeguard these records so that we could bring them with us on our journey through the wilderness to the promised land. We would now be able to teach our children and their children the accurate history of the Earth and of God’s commandments.