The creation is an inspiring event that took place in our pre-mortal existence.
God had a plan for all of of his spirit children. He had a plan set in place for us children to receive a body of flesh and bones just like he had. When we heard this, we "shouted for joy" in excitement(see Job 38:7).
While I was growing up as a teenager, I was a huge baseball fan... Ken Griffey Jr. to be exact! He had the perfect swing to knock a ball out of the park. He was the youngest player ever to reach 500 home runs and was on pace to become the all time home run hitter UNTIL injuries plagued his career and prevented him from reaching that coveted milestone. If God approached me and said I could have his swing and hitting style... I would've "shouted for joy" in excitement, knowing I soon would be able to reach my dreams of a professional baseball player AND a home run hitter.
In the pre-existence God had a body of flesh and bones. Something that none of us spirit children had, but wanted badly so we could become just like Him. When he told us we would receive a body just like His... I'm sure we did more than just "shout for joy"!
All things were created twice. First spiritually and then physically. We don't know much about our spiritual creation, but we do on our physical creation, and here it is:
The meaning of the word create, "Now, the word create came from the baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos--chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith p.363-364).
Creating the world is similar to baking a cake. We take flour from which we produced six months ago, eggs which we gathered from a chicken last week, milk from a cow we milked this morning. We combine these elements to produce a cake.
Jesus Christ created this world and also "many other worlds" as our Father said, "Worlds without number have I created... And by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten"(Moses 1:33). Jesus had help from others in the creation of this world, "Adam helped to form this Earth. He labored with our Saviour Jesus Christ. I have a strong view or conviction that there were others also who assisted them. Perhaps Noah and Enoch; and who not Joseph Smith, and those who were appointed to be rulers before the Earth was formed? We know that Jesus our Saviour was a Spirit when this great work was done. He did all of these mighty works before he tabernacled in the flesh"(Doctrines of Salvation p.74-75).
This isn't the only world that plays host to God's children. "Worlds without number" exist in our Universe. How many worlds??? We don't know... We don't know cause a mortal man can't comprehend the "number" He is referring to.
Moses 7:30 states, "And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of they creations..." Particles of the Earth??? That's a lot, there are tons... Let's shed some like on this for a second... If you were to have a bucket full of sand. That bucket could hold about two million particles. TWO MILLION! How many buckets would it take to consume the whole Earth?!?! We couldn't even comprehend that number either!
There are four different accounts of the creation in the books of Genesis, Moses, Abraham. The fourth account is the temple. Each account slightly differs from each other, but not by much. Joseph Fielding Smith said in Doctrines of Salvation, "I think the temple account, which was given by revelation, is the clearest of all these(p.75)."
To basically sum it up... It took six days to create the Earth with a significant event taking place each day, while God rested on the seventh day.
After that... Adam was placed on this earth, "And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created, but spiritually they were created and made according to my word(Moses 3:7)."
Abraham 5:7 helps us understand that "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" was "the man's spirit" entering into Adam's body.
This is the basic understanding of the creation through the scriptures we have at hand. We do know that Adam and Eve journeyed on this Earth 6,000 years ago.
