Enos was a Nephite record keeper, the son of Jacob and grandson of Lehi, and a nephew of the prophet Nephi. His father Jacob gave him the plates and the charge Nephi had laid on him, and Enos promised to keep the commands (Jacob 7:27).
While hunting beasts in the forest, Enos turned to the words his father had spoken about eternal life and the joy of the saints (Enos 1:3). He knelt and prayed for his own soul all day and into the night — calling the experience “the wrestle which I had before God” (Enos 1:2) — and a voice told him his sins were forgiven through his faith in Christ (Enos 1:4-5). He then prayed for the welfare of the Nephites, and the Lord answered that he would visit them according to their diligence in keeping the commandments; Enos next prayed for the Lamanites (Enos 1:9-11). He was told he must preach and prophesy to his people and declare the word according to the truth in Christ (Enos 1:26).
Enos asked the Lord that if the Nephites fell into transgression and were destroyed while the Lamanites survived, a record of the Nephites would be preserved and brought forth to the Lamanites at a future day. Knowing that the Lord had told him that whatsoever thing is asked in faith, believing, in the name of Christ, shall be received, he cried to the Lord continually for the records (Enos 1:15). The Lord covenanted to bring the records forth to the Lamanites in his own time, and said Enos’s fathers had asked the same thing (Enos 1:13-18). Enos saw wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites in his days, and reported that the Lamanites’ hatred was fixed and that Nephite efforts to restore them to the faith were unsuccessful (Enos 1:20, 24).
By the close of his record, 179 years had passed since Lehi left Jerusalem (Enos 1:25). Enos wrote that he would go to his rest with his Redeemer (Enos 1:27). The plates passed to his son Jarom (Jarom 1:1).