The most interesting aspect of the Nephite record of Christ’s words coming to the future generations of those who were “established in this land, and … set up as a free people,” was that they would receive that word through the Gentiles. That was unexpected. Why would the word of the gathering of the house of Israel come through a Gentile?
Jesus says that it is so that “He may show forth his power unto the Gentiles.” In Nephi’s vision of the future of the world, he saw that the Gentiles would be invited into the covenant. Having the Book of Mormon come first to the Gentiles was an invitation for them to be adopted into the house of Israel by what they could learn from the New World testament of Christ by the New World house of Israel.