Some of the plates were written by Mormon, and then handed to his son Moroni (yes, seriously) whom added his own bit and then buried them.
The stuff on the plates is impressively well documented, considering what happens. You'll see.
So yes, 14 year old Joseph went to bed one night, September 20th, 1823 and had a pretty weird time until the morning of September 21st. Basically, he took himself off to bed and started to pray - when the room suddenly got brighter and a guy appeared hovering just off the floor, dressed in "most exquisite whiteness". (Note: 1823. These people didn't have Daz. A nice new shirt would have been pretty awesomely bright in comparison with the dusty, grubby clothes of your average person. )
So yes, the man in the bright white robe turned up ("The POWER OF PINK!" Sorry.) and went "Oi, Joe. I'm Moroni, sent by God. You gotta job to do - I buried some stuff that tells tales of the "ancient" people of the land and how they worshipped Christ.
Yeah, I mean Native Americans - forget the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Miccosuke and all that jazz, they were all Christian really. The rest was just pretty pictures.
Anyway, I need you to go get this stuff. Oh yeah, there's also some funky armour that has jewels in silver bows with names. You need to go get that stuff. They'll help you translate the plates, because otherwise it's gobbledegook.
I sense you're looking at me a bit blankly. You, Joe, go get some stuff, but not now. In a bit. Oh, and when you DO get them, don't show them to anyone without checking with me first, or you know, God will have to kill you."
And so Joe knew where they were. The light faded away into a tunnel to Heaven and Moroni scooted off up, leaving Joe in the dark. He sat wondering what the hell just happened.
When suddenly, the light was back! Moroni was back!
Apparently he told him the same story without the slightest variation, but I feel that would be lazy copy and paste work to do here, so I'll summarise: "Plates. Indians and previous peoples actually Christian. Aermour with kooky jewels in. Don't tell people or God will kill you."
Oh yeah, and he also said this time "Great judgements are coming upon the earth, with great desolations by famine, sword and pestilence; these grevious judgements are coming to the earth in this generation!"
(That sounds a bit familiar. They could have at least made up their OWN version of the Four Horsemen. Someone needs to sue for plagarism. I'll also point to "In this generation!" - that's a bit "the end is nigh!" for me, as well as a bit vague. Humans are great at misery, getting diseases, being too poor and starting fights. Big whoop, some revelation, man.)
Anyway, he vanishes again, leaving Joe even more befuddled and scared wide away "so deep were the impressions made on my mind."
When suddenly, the light was back! Moroni was back! Again!
(I'm sensing a pattern here, because...) He told the same story all over again, once more without variation. To summarise: "Stuff to get, Indians secretly Christian. Show people, God kills you." This time though, he has a different additional message. (He appears to be pretty lousy at this messenger of God thing, he keeps forgetting bits, having to come back and start from the beginning to get it right.) This additional message was about not being a greedy git. They might be gold plates, but they're GOD'S gold plates. Satan will try to make you greedy, because they're worth shedloads of money.
And then he vanished. And dawn turned up.
At which point, the not-having-slept-all-night Joe dragged himself out of bed and went to help out on the farm with his dad, but was so knackered as to be completely bloody useless. Dad sent him home and, as he tried to climb over the fence, he passed out on the floor.
And woke up to discover Moroni looking down at him, going "Dude. I told you all this stuff already. Plates. Christindians. Go get."
Joe picked himself off the floor and went to tell his dad, whom sensibly (I guess) told him to go do as he was jolly well told then, and go to the pretty big hill just outside Manchester, Ontario Country, New York.
Well, Joe got there and discovered pretty big rock at the top of the pretty big hill. Sort of half buried with the edges under the ground, and once pried up, revealed a sort of large stone box. (A bit like a stone coffin... or, you know, someone's tomb. The kind of thing it's likely to find a warrior's breastplate and a big stack of gold in. Oops.)
Anyway, Joe tried to pick up this stuff, and found he couldn't. Maybe it was too heavy? That is a LOT of gold, and he is only fourteen... So, in an elegant solution, he comes back every year to try again, each time being given more information from Moroni.
Finally, a whole four years later (22nd September 1827, if you're that interested) he managed to actually go get them. Only to have to look afger them until Moroni would actually need them, on the 2nd May, 1838. (Which seems a bit pointless really. If you don't need them right now, why couldn't you just leave 'em be until you DID? Unless I misunderstood a bit. "I delivered them up to him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the 2nd May..." Perhaps Moroni had them off him for a bit, got bored, and gave them back?)
Joe took the items home and hid them in a box. People were allowed to pick up the box to see how HEAVY all this gold was, but they weren't allowed to look at it. God said so. Anyway, they were written by "people speaking from the dust" - "reformed Egyptian" (which is a cute way of putting it really).
Anyhow, Moroni told him to look after them pretty darned carefully, because "Joe, dude, you're responsible for them now. Screw up, and you'll be cut off." This was good advice, as people had figured out shortly after that 18 year old Joe was bumming around with a big stack of gold and tried to nick it.
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You can read an extended "complete record" in the Pearl of Great Price or The History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (volume 1, chapters 1 through 6.) Fair enough if you want to, but it's really not that exciting over these 11 years, besides lots of people tried to nick them by various methods.
They were translated/dictated into "modern" speech "by the gift and power of God" - by putting one of the jewels in a hat and putting it over his face, then reading what the stone said. It was published in 1830 as The Book of Mormon. I'm being mindful of typos.
He then returned the plates to their "angelic guardian". As a result, these plates cannot be examined. Which is a bit sad, after all the trouble people took to get hold of the things in the first place - more details to come. And it's also a bit convenient because now the Mormons have to believe as a matter of faith.
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In the next chapter - the Testimonies of Others.
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