Moroni’s body and spirit were reunited, and he was brought forth triumphant through the air in 1823 to meet with Joseph Smith on numerous occasions in that year and the succeeding four years, but he will yet meet all of us at the “pleasing bar of the great Jehovah.” Hopefully we will be among the spiritually “quick” (meaning “alive,” in Christ) and not among the spiritually dead at that decisive meeting.
If we are privileged to see Moroni after we finish our mortal probation, perhaps we will truly begin to understand something of his greatness and exceptional ministry. Moroni was raised in a righteous home and nurtured in gospel practices (Moroni 8:2–3). He witnessed the degradation and destruction of his society, yet kept the faith (Moroni 9). In mortality, Moroni saw and spoke with Jesus face-to-face (Ether 12:39). Moroni spoke with assurance about conditions that would exist on earth in the last days because Jesus Christ showed all things to him, he saw us, and he knew of our activities (Mormon 8:35). Between 1823 and 1829 Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and others at least twenty times. Moroni was the custodian of the plates and sacred records of American Israelites, showing them to different individuals and groups but always taking them back (see Joseph Smith–History 1:60; Testimony of the Eight Witnesses). He “holds the keys of the stick or Record of Ephraim.”16 He is the guardian angel of America.
Elder Orson Hyde declared: “This same angel presides over the destinies of America, and feels a lively interest in all our doings. He was in the camp of Washington; and, by an invisible hand, led on our fathers to conquest and victory; and all this to open and prepare the way for the Church and kingdom of God to be established on the western hemisphere, for the redemption of Israel and the salvation of the world.
“This same angel was with Columbus, and gave him deep impressions, by dreams and by visions, respecting this New World. Trammeled by poverty and by an unpopular cause, yet his persevering and unyielding heart would not allow an obstacle in his way too great for him to overcome; and the angel of God helped him—was with him on the stormy deep, calmed the troubled elements, and guided his frail vessel to the desired haven. Under the guardianship of this same angel, or Prince of America, have the United States grown, increased and flourished, like the sturdy oak by the rivers of water.”17
President Brigham Young said that Moroni dedicated the site of the Manti Utah Temple. “At a conference held in Ephraim, Sanpete County, June 25th, 1875, nearly all the speakers expressed their feelings to have a temple built in Sanpete County… . At 4 P.M. that day President Brigham Young said, ‘The Temple should be built on Manti stone quarry.’ Early on the morning of April 25th, 1877, President Brigham Young asked Brother Warren S. Snow to go with him to the Temple hill. Brother Snow says: ‘We two were alone: President Young took me to the spot where the Temple was to stand; we went to the southeast corner, and President Young said: “Here is the spot where the prophet Moroni stood and dedicated this piece of land for a Temple site, and that is the reason why the location is made here, and we can’t move it from this spot; and if you and I are the only persons that come here at high noon today, we will dedicate this ground.”’”18
Truly, the more we learn about the prophet-angel named Moroni, the more amazing he becomes in our eyes. Someday, if we are worthy, we will comprehend the full and towering stature of the last of the great Book of Mormon figures.