Jeffrey R. Holland
"The maturing Mormon, by then fifteen years of age, stood beyond the sinfulness around him and rose above the despair of his time. Consequently, he ’was visited of the Lord, and tasted and knew of the goodness of Jesus,’ trying valiantly to preach to his people. But as God occasionally does when those with so much light reject it, Mormon literally had his mouth shut. He was forbidden to preach to a nation that had wilfully rebelled against their God. These people had rejected the miracles and messages delivered them by the three translated Nephite disciples, who had now also been silenced in their ministry and been taken from the nation to whom they had been sent.
“Remaining among those people but silenced in his testimony.” (Christ And The New Covenant, p. 318)
Sterling W. Sill
“Mormon had to be restrained in his desire to preach the gospel…Most of us have to be coaxed and begged and reminded to do our duty. Mormon had to be held back.” (quoted in Daniel Ludlow, A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, p. 298)