The main characters in the story of The Book of Mormon are the prophets and religious leaders from the Church of Mormon. They are Joseph Smith, Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Mormon, Ether and Maroni. All them apart from Joseph Smith narrates a section of the Mormon story.

As the founder of the Mormon Church in 1830 Joseph Smith gives what he calls "The Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith." In his testimony he describes how he found the gold plates and translated them into English.

He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.

His testimony was backed by 11 more witnesses. They are Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jun., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sen., Hyrum Smith and Samuel H. Smith.

Joseph translated the story how of the Nephites traveled from Jerusalem to the promised land of the Americas. The most important person in the story is Nephi, the founder of the Nephite people. In 600 BC his father Lephi received a vision that Jerusalem would he destroyed and so he left with his family that included his sons Nephi, Laman, Lemuel and Jacob. After his sons Laman and Lemuel started to disobey him, he divided his family into the Lephites and the Nephites.

The Lephites eventually defeated the Nephites in a war, but before they did a man called Maroni hid the gold plates his father Mormon wrote the scriptures on on a hill in the land of Cumorah.

And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.

There are two more peoples connected to the Mormons: the Jaredites and the Mulekites. The Mulekites are the descendants of Mulek and the Jaredites are the descendants of Jared.