1 Nephi 19:1

Nephi is now in the promised land. The time is somewhere between 588 B.C. and 570 B.C. and will be until 2 Nephi 5. It is interesting that this is the time when he is commanded by the Lord to make a record of his life. The next time he mentions a specific year was when he was commanded by the Lord to make another record, one of his spiritual life.

So, in verse 1, we read that Nephi was commanded by the Lord to make a record of his people on plates of ore. Nephi shares with us that he engraved (1) the record of his father, (2) their journeyings in the wilderness, (3) the prophesies of his father, and (4) many of Nephi's own prophesies.

I thought a moment about the record that Lehi kept. He was probably commanded by the Lord to make a record, quite possibly at the time he was called to be a prophet. Like Nephi, Lehi probably wrote a lot of the important spiritual events up to that time in hindsight. But, who knows for sure. However, Nephi copied it down on his plate. We'll get more into this, but Nephi will share that his Large and Small Plates are for the prophets to hand them down from generation to generation. This would end up being Jacob's posterity for the rest of the Small Plates. But I wondered what happened to the actual record of Lehi. Nephi had made a copy of it and put it in his Large Plates (which were eventually translated by Joseph Smith taking up 116 pages of paper and such translation was stolen and/or lost while in the care of Martin Harris). I thought about this and I wonder if Lehi had given his copy of the record to Laman and Lemuel's posterity in hopes that it might convince them of the truth and to bring them to repentance. We can see Lehi's desire for such change in 2 Nephi 1:10-27 or thereabouts. But, who knows. : )