Concerning Alma the Younger, Mormon wrote:
“He departed out of the land of Zarahemla . . . . And it came to pass that he was never heard of more; as to his death or burial we know not of. Behold, this we know, that he was a righteous man; and the saying went abroad in the church that he was taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord.”
(Alma 45:18-19.)
The language describing Nephi’s departure is very similar to this hence we assume that the Lord chose to translate him, to receive him into a terrestrial state without his tasting death.
If so, then Nephi, like three others who will follow such a course in thirty-four years, was given power over death, power over the elements power to come and go among the children of men as need arose and power to continue his mortal work in bringing souls unto Christ either on this or some other planet or planets (see commentary on the three Nephites in 3 Nephi 28; see also Teachings, p. 170).