Earlier this month, I was invited to join my ward’s Primary to teach for only a couple of minutes about Moroni, the son of Mormon.
As I prepared for that Sunday, I was blessed to have my testimony strengthened through study of Moroni’s life in the Book of Mormon and prayer to understand his role better. The Holy Ghost helped me consider a few key elements to Moroni’s story that I hadn’t previously considered.
In the past, I have been quick to jump from Moroni receiving the gold plates to his burying them to his appearance as an angel to Joseph Smith, as if those events all happened in a matter of days instead of over 14 centuries.
In the October 2024 general conference, Bishop L. Todd Budge of the Presiding Bishopric shared a personal experience when he felt a “reminder to slow down and to live with greater spiritual awareness.”
I, too, had a similar experience as the Spirit prompted me to slow down and avoid rushing the story of Moroni with the Primary children. I couldn’t replace Moroni’s faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ with a quickly compressed timeline of events. His story is incomplete without a telling of his hope demonstrated by obedience.
Moroni had an interesting role that required him to look both backward and forward while living in the midst of terrible and historic calamities in his own day.
He continued to write the history of his people, like his father before him. He abridged the Jaredites’ record found today in the book of Ether. He finished his own writings with a plea to whoever would eventually read the record. And when the time came, he buried a collection of plates with a thousand years of prophetic teachings in a hole in the ground.
That final chapter doesn’t dwell on his hardships. It doesn’t rehash the challenges of writing on plates or carrying them around or protecting them. He doesn’t ask for others to cry over his sacrifices and losses. Moroni’s final concern was to bear testimony of God’s goodness, of the Savior’s Atonement and of the promise of the Holy Ghost’s confirmation that the gospel is true.
His final act of faith was to put those writings away — hidden to mankind but known to God.
Moroni worked long and hard to preserve the record. And then his final task as the record’s caretaker was to bury it. There would be no next in line during his mortal life. His was a 1,400-year act of faith.
I don’t know if he knew it would take that long for the plates to be uncovered. I don’t know if he knew he would appear to the plates’ next caretaker in the form of an angel.
But when I stood in front of those Primary children, I shared my love for Moroni because he did what he was asked with the same faith that Joseph Smith would demonstrate when he prayed in a grove of trees in 1820 — the faith to know that answers of eternal consequence can be granted only by a loving Father in Heaven. I imagine that in the moment Heavenly Father appeared with His Son in the Sacred Grove in upstate New York that perhaps both Joseph’s and Moroni’s prayers were answered simultaneously.
And I look forward to studying more about Joseph Smith’s faith as we collectively study Doctrine and Covenants in 2025.
God the Father’s desire to answer our prayers isn’t exclusive to huge and historic moments like the burying of the gold plates or their uncovering. He promises (2 Chronicles 7:14) and promises (Matthew 7:7-8) and promises (Doctrine and Covenants 88:63-64) that He will answer all His children’s prayers in the way that is best for them in accordance with His will.
None of us will be asked to do what Moroni or Joseph Smith did. The Lord’s mouthpiece on the earth today has asked us to be prepared for our own unique opportunity that has not happened before on the earth.
“Brothers and sisters, now is the time for you and for me to prepare for the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Now is the time for us to make our discipleship our highest priority,” President Russell M. Nelson said in his message in the October 2024 general conference.
The Book of Mormon that we have studied individually, in our homes, in our seminary and institute classes, and in our branches and wards this year began with an introductory promise related to President Nelson’s invitation.
“Those who gain this divine witness from the Holy Spirit will also come to know by the same power that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith is His revelator and prophet in these last days, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s kingdom once again established on the earth, preparatory to the Second Coming of the Messiah.”
I bore testimony to my ward’s Primary children, and I echo it here. Moroni’s burying of the plates was an act of faith. Our preparation for the Second Coming is an act of faith. He didn’t know the timing related to his. We don’t know the timing related to ours. But the promise of exaltation if we will live faithful to our covenants is the same for all of us, and God will fulfill His promises.
— Jon Ryan Jensen is editor of the Church News.
