“Joseph Smith reported that on the evening of September 21, 1823, while he prayed in the upper room of his parents’ small log home in Palmyra, New York, an angel who called himself Moroni appeared and told Joseph that ‘God had a work for [him] to do.’ He informed Joseph that ‘there was a book deposited, written upon gold[en] plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang.’ [Joseph Smith—History 1:33–34.] …
“The angel charged Joseph Smith to translate the book from the ancient language in which it was written. The young man, however, had very little formal education and was incapable of writing a book on his own, let alone translating an ancient book written from an unknown language, known in the Book of Mormon as ‘reformed Egyptian’ [Mormon 9:32; see also 1 Nephi 1:2]. Joseph’s wife Emma insisted that, at the time of translation, Joseph ‘could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictat[e] a book like the Book of Mormon’ [‘Last Testimony of Sister Emma,’ Saints’ Herald 26 (Oct. 1, 1879), 290]. …
“In the preface to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith wrote: ‘I would inform you that I translated [the book], by the gift and power of God’” (“Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics, topics.lds.org).
“When we reject the counsel which comes from God, we do not choose to be independent of outside influence. We choose another influence. We reject the protection of a perfectly loving, all-powerful, all-knowing Father in Heaven, whose whole purpose, as that of His Beloved Son, is to give us eternal life, to give us all that He has, and to bring us home again in families to the arms of His love. In rejecting His counsel, we choose the influence of another power, whose purpose is to make us miserable and whose motive is hatred” (Henry B. Eyring, “Finding Safety in Counsel,”Ensign, May 1997, 25).