As discussed under 1 Nephi 10:17, Joseph Smith removed some instances of the phrase “it came to pass” in his editing for the 1837 edition. Many of these involve a redundant use of the phrase, but here in Alma 8:18–19, the issue was not one of redundancy. Instead, we have a sequence of events for which the frequent use of that phrase in the sequence seemed excessive, so the second and third occurrences of the phrase were removed. The critical text will restore these two instances of “it came to pass” and all others that were in the earliest text. For a complete discussion, see under come to pass in volume 3.
Summary: Restore in Alma 8:18–19 the second and third instances of “it came to pass” that occur in close succession after the first instance of the phrase.