There is a well-known painting of Moroni kneeling and praying with his hands clasped over the gold plates prior to his burying them.  It's a wonderful depiction of his actions before placing the plates in the ground where they would lie undisturbed for the next 1400 years.

The picture isn't entirely accurate, however.  The painting depicts a handsome, young warrior in his battle dress.  That's all right, but at the time Moroni buried the plates for the last time, he was actually about an 80-year-old man.  He would also have looked like a vagabond.  He had been wandering "whithersoever (he could) for the safety of (his) own life."  (Moroni 1:3).  He had probably not shaved for years, and would have been dressed in clothes he'd made himself from animal skins.  His regular clothing would have worn out years before.  He'd been wandering all alone for 37 years.

Can you imagine being all alone for 37 years without a soul to talk to?  Can you imagine spending 37 years being constantly on the alert for the enemy that would kill you at first sight?  Can you imagine carefully sneaking through the trees, covering hundreds of miles, looking for some isolated spot where you might safely be able to start a small fire to cook some food and to warm yourself?  Can you imagine a 37-year-long diet consisting mostly of meat that you've had to obtain using your bow and arrows?

Moroni had a long and lonely life.  At the time of the great battle he was in his early forties.  His father, Mormon, was 73 or 74.  Moroni undoubtedly had a wife and children, but lost them in the great conflict between the Nephites and Lamanites.

How lonely would that be?  How could you live?   Who would you serve?  What would you do?  Where would you go?  How long would you be left in that condition?  How would you die?  Would the Lamanites find you, or would you be left to die an old man in the wilderness with no one to care for you or to bury your body?  Life was hard, and dying might be harder yet.

After the great battle at Cumorah Moroni let some 16 years elapse before he wrote the two chapters that finished his father's small book.  (Mormon 8:6).  He said, "I am alone.  My father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friends nor whither to go."  (Mormon 8:5).

He then abridged Ether's record.  (Moroni 1:1)  His 31-page abridgment did not comprise even a hundredth part of what was written on the 24 plates.  (Ether 15:33).

Did he read the whole account by use of the Urim and Thummim, or did he have a previously-translated account available?  The whole record would have been over 3,100 pages of English.

How we would love to have that full record!  How we would love to be able to look in on Moroni to see how he spent his 37 years of exile.  How we admire him for his tenacity and teachings.  He holds the keys to the Book of Mormon, and to the two-thirds of the gold plates that we still don't have.

I'm anxious for him to return and to share with us the rest of the record.