Bountiful was a fertile region on the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula where Lehi’s party arrived after traveling through the wilderness. They named it Bountiful for its much fruit and wild honey, and pitched their tents by the seashore (1 Nephi 17:5-6). The sea bordering the land they called Irreantum, meaning “many waters” (1 Nephi 17:5).
After Nephi had been in the land many days, the voice of the Lord directed him into the mountain and commanded him to build a ship to carry the party across the waters (1 Nephi 17:8). Nephi found ore in the land, smelted it from the rock, and made tools to build the ship, working the timbers as the Lord showed him rather than after the manner of men (1 Nephi 17:9-11, 16). When the ship was finished, the party loaded it with their provisions, seeds, and families, went down into it, and were driven before the wind toward the promised land (1 Nephi 18:1-8).
A separate Bountiful in the New World served as the site of the resurrected Christ’s first appearance to the Nephites. A great multitude had gathered round about the temple in the land Bountiful when Christ descended, invited the people to come forth and thrust their hands into his wounds, and confirmed that he was the God of Israel and had been slain for the sins of the world (3 Ne 11:1, 14-15). At that same gathering he gave his disciples power to baptize and instituted the sacrament, making the temple in Bountiful the setting for the covenant renewal at the center of the Book of Mormon’s witness of Christ (3 Ne 11:21-22; 18:1-11).