Mormon is a historian of the sacred, and his focus when he is writing in on the sacred patterns of the past so that they may inform the future. It is therefore completely fitting that as he bears his testimony, he uses connections to the past to proclaim truth to his future readers. In his personal testimony he begins with the repetition of his name. The statement “I am Mormon,” is not made because he expects that we have forgotten, but rather because he is invoking his name in a formulaic benediction of his efforts. In the ancient world one’s name was a powerful bond of one’s presence and being.
In addition to declaring his name, he also declares his lineage. A man of the ancient world was not an individual, but a representative of the kinship line that produced him. Thus part of who Mormon was is identified when he indicates that he is “a pure descendant of Lehi.”
The connection of the present to the past is made in the last sentence, where Mormon links the fathers to his current effort.