Lehi has a dream/vision where he is in a dark wasteland. He is briefly escorted by a heavenly guide who takes him to a field with a tree. The tree has delicious pure-white fruit that can impart happiness. Lehi looks around the landscape and sees his family by a river, and gets them to come up to him. Laman and Lemuel, predictably, refuse. Many other people are trying to get to the tree, but a nasty dark mist impedes them, as well as the aforementioned river. However, the narrow path leading to the tree has a nice railing by it that you can hold onto. Some people make it, only to take off in embarrassment when mean and snobby people in a huge building accross the way make fun of them.
Lehi finishes telling the dream and has a talk with Laman and Lemuel, worried about them.
Nephi interjects another little chapter of explanation about how he's making two sets of plates, surprise!
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So, the dream was kind of a nice story. Some weird descriptions, like how he says the building stood "as it were in the air." So, floating? Or just really tall? But I'll remember that this is a dream, and sometimes in dreams things aren't all that clear.
I feel a little bad for Laman and Lemuel. They have been acting up a lot lately, but it seems like if you treat them like delinquents, that's what they'll be.
The entire dream is nice, but ultimately... unimpressive. Not that I need it to be slaying vampires (my personal favorite dream ever) or anything like that. It's just... okay: tree, fruit, nice. Path with railing, not a bad idea, but not astonishing to anyone who's been to the grand canyon. Dark fog, deep river, the whole thing is sort of depressing and really boring. The most interesting part by far is the building full of snobs! I wanted to hear more about their story, but they didn't get that much attention. What is this building? What is their problem? How'd they get there when everyone else is drowning in the river trying to get there?
As for Nephi's little interjection: I'm starting to think it's odd how he is compiling this record. He obviously takes it pretty seriously, but keeps adding these "oh, and by the way, I'm gonna do this with my plates" explanations right smack in the middle of the narrative. And he sure has a way with words: "the plates ... have I given the name of Nephi; wherefore, they are called the plates of Nephi, after mine own name; and these plates are also called the plates of Nephi."
Did I mention that they're called Nephi? That's my name! Nephi! Oh, and my other plates? Guess what, they're called Nephi, too!
This kid needs some serious advice on coming up with catchier titles. It's like me writing a book and giving it the title Book, and then writing a sequel and also naming that one Book.
