Verses 11-26 constitute a special-case personal introduction by Mormon. This introduction contrasts to the posited introduction that would have been given early in the Book of Lehi, as suggested in the comments entitled “Mormon’s missing introduction,” found following Words of Mormon 1:1. In that comment, it was recognized that this particular personal introduction comes very late in the Book of Mormon. In the text as we have it, Mormon simply assumes that we know who he is and what he is doing. Surely in the original (and now lost) book of Lehi, he would have made a more formal introduction.
The posited presence of that earlier introduction nevertheless raises the question as to why this introduction exists. In this introduction, we have Mormon the apostle introducing himself. As Mormon sets up the story of the appearance of the Atoning Messiah in the New World, he declares the truth of that event through his own apostolic witness. Mormon may be writing on the plates. Mormon may be taking his account from other records, but the witness of the divine mission of the Atoning Messiah is personal. Here we are not introduced to Mormon the editor, but to Mormon the apostle of the Lord, the personal witness to the divinity of the savior.
In these two verses we have two essential pieces of Mormon’s biography. The first is that he is the editor, the one who is making the record on plates. The grammatical structure of verse 11 suggests that Mormon physically made the plates as well as wrote on them. This may be Mormon’s conceptual tie to the first New World prophet, Nephi, who also wrote on plates made by his own hands.
The theme of historical connections continues in the next verse where Mormon links his name to the beginnings of the Nephite church with Alma the Elder in the waters of Mormon. Naming was an important and meaningful act in the ancient world. We have seen Helaman specifically tell his sons (Nephi and Lehi) that they are named for the early prophets so that they will remember (Helaman 5:6). This attempt to influence the character of the descendants by giving them a name of importance from the past is part of what Mormon is telling us here. He is Mormon, and his tie to the past is to one of the important events in Nephite history. He is now an apostle in this church that was originally established by the waters from which his name was taken. Thus his name, and perhaps his character, and surely his remembering are all linked to the person of Alma the Elder, the event of the establishment of a church and to the method of entering that church, the waters of baptism.