1 Nephi 9

I found it helps keep things straight if you write the word "small" above the words "these plates" and the word "large" above the words "other plates." The only verse that doesn't work is verse 2 which is the most confusing. The full account of the history is the large plates. In verse three Nephi says that he is making the small plates for a special purpose, a wise purpose but he doesn't know what that purpose is. In chapter 19, he talks a little more about it and says that he is writing more of the prophecies and the ministry for the instruction of the people for a purpose which are known unto the Lord. And then he says, "And I, Nephi, have written these things unto my people, that perhaps I might persuade them that they would remember the Lord their Redeemer."

I'm glad Martin Harris lost the first 116 pages of the translation of the large plates. Otherwise we wouldn't have Nephi's writings which are more sacred and contain more doctrine about the atonement than the lost pages would have. For those that stole them, it's like the Lord said, "Since you've stolen the manuscript in effort to hinder the work, I'll substitute it with something far better and more convincin