The Book of Mormon

Mormon 1

No matter what other applications you’ve seen of that title, this is my book. My name is Mormon. Firsthand testimony.

When Ammaron secreted the records I was ten, but pretty smart and well read. So Ammaron said to me, “I see you’re pretty smart and well read. Serious too. And a quick study. So hear me out: When you turn twenty-four go to Antum, where there’s a hill called Shim. That’s where I hid Nephi’s plates. You take them out and engrave the rest of the story, as you see it. I’m sorry I can’t give you better directions on where to find them. But I was hiding them. That was my point burying them. Pray, maybe, for some help with that.”

Well, obviously I remembered what he said and did it. Because you’re reading me on those plates.

When I was eleven my father (also named Mormon, making me actually Mormon, Jr.) took me south to Zarahemla. It was huge and crowded, with a motley skyscape and narrow streets.

That was the year the Nephites (including Josephites, Jacobites, Zoramites, and actual Nephites) and Lamanites (including Lemuelites, Ishmaelites, and actual Lamanites) started fighting again. I don’t know who started it but, given all that’s happened around here, I can’t believe it matters.

The big battleground sat on the outskirts of the city, near Sidon River. The Nephite army was 30,000 strong when they started and they basically whipped the Lamanites in battle after battle. (“Whipped” does not denote actual whipping. It’s a euphemism for lots of killing. My dad preferred the term, considering my age at the time.)

The Lamanites gave up and we had four years of peace.

But peace is never enough for us, as you know. Religion has to rule the peace. And believe me, it didn’t.

The population was as spiritually indifferent—read “mean” and “crude”—as we’d had. God’s spirit had blown over like a dust storm. Even the special three long-lasting disciples skipped town. So miracles? Healing? Please.

I, however, was righteous. At least that’s what God told me when he visited me in my room when I was fifteen.

I wanted to preach after that—it seemed a wide-open career choice. But God muzzled me. He didn’t want me to sully my sweet, brilliant words by speaking them to the dog pen of snapping unbelievers.

I didn’t skip town. But I couldn’t really talk about God. People’s hearts seemed like old concrete slabs from demolished buildings. You know, the kind God sometimes knocks down when he’s mad at their tenants.

The Gadiantons were still around, but had gone full-scale occult. Witches, warlocks, magicians (I mean real ones, not illusionists): they ruled the Gadianton roost. They had this one thing that was really creepy: if you buried something and they put a hex on it, you could never dig it up again. The ground swallowed it whole. (I never saw this but heard about it a lot.)

In my opinion, this whole era fulfilled the dire predictions of Abinadi and also Lamanite Samuel.