“At length the time arrived for obtaining the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. On the twenty-second day of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, having gone as usual at the end of another year to the place where they were deposited, the same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected.” — Joseph Smith Jr.
In the late evening hours of September 21, 1827, Joseph Smith and his wife Emma set out from their home to the Hill Cumorah using a wagon borrowed from Joseph Knight, Sr. They arrived at the hill under the cover of darkness, and Emma waited with the wagon while Joseph climbed up to the golden plates.2
Once Joseph was there, the Angel Moroni appeared and warned the young man that if Joseph treated the plates with carelessness or neglected them, he would be cut off. But if Joseph were to put all his efforts into safeguarding the plates, they would be protected.1 Joseph took the plates and carried them down the hill, but instead of taking them all the way home, he hid them in a hollow log for safety until he could return with a lockbox.2
