According to Hugh Nibley, the word covenant is from covenira, meaning "come together." Venir is "to come." Venue, conventical, and convention are related words. It's a coming together of two worlds. Mormon has just said that the Lord dwells in heaven. Why should he bring that in? "He dwelleth eternally in the heavens" (Ether 7:28). The answer is that because the Lord dwells in the heavens, we have to have a connection here . . . a celestial connection. Faith brings about this meeting of the worlds, which he calls here joining in the covenant. The office of angels' ministry is "to do the work of the covenants of the Father" (Moroni 7:31). . . to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith" (Moroni 7:30). . . .
A covenant, as I said, is a coming together, an agreement. This is a covenant where everybody is joined in the same atonement, at-one-ment. They're all joined together, and this is the way it happens. Mormon says that the Lord does it in regular order here. But nobody's privileged above another. It's just the office of their ministry. As Brigham Young said, prophecy is not an office at all--it's a gift. It doesn't go with any office. Some women have the gift more often than men, as a matter of fact. One of the greatest prophets we had was Eliza R. Snow. My grandmother told us some marvelous prophecies she gave that have been fulfilled. [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 4, pp. 281-282]