Joyful Wells | Sharing Cups of Water

The Book of Mormon follows the father-to-son pattern of the Holy Order  that was instituted in the beginning. Lehi was the first Patriarch father of that scattered branch ( 1 Nephi 3:4 ). Nephi was Lehi's next oldest and righteous son to occupy that position after him. And so on. But do you notice that the next person to inherit this position after Nephi isn't any of Nephi's children? Instead, it went to Nephi's younger brother, Jacob. Why didn't it continue in the father-to-son Order? Did Nephi not have a righteous son? It went to Nephi's brother instead of any of his children because as long as Lehi had righteous sons who were alive, the father-to-son Order would continue to follow his line, not Nephi's. Jacob was the oldest, righteous, living son of Lehi after Nephi.  Yet, Nephi tells us that his "seed" are the ones who will write on the plates: " Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which ...

In 1820, Joseph Smith experienced his first vision of Jesus Christ and God the Father.  Seven  years later, after much refinement through persecution, Joseph was prepared to receive the golden plates known today as the Book of Mormon. He details the account of obtaining the plates below: […] Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario County, New York, stands a hill of considerable size and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box. This stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side, and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth. Having removed the earth, and obtained a lever which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in. And there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim,...