Chapter 7: The Creation B: The Physical Creation Took Place According to the Plan of God

God made a plan for the physical creation. The plan was detailed and it was set out before he began. It encompasses the whole of creation.

All thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, shall be revealed and set forth upon all who have endured valiantly for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And also, if there be bounds set to the heavens or the seas, or to the dry land, or to the sun, moon, or stars-- All the times of their revolutions, all the appointed days, months, and years, and all the days of their days, months, and years, and all their glories, laws, and set times, shall be revealed in the days of the dispensation of the fulness of times -- According to that which was ordained in the midst of the Council of the Eternal God of all other gods before this world was, that should be reserved unto the finishing and the end thereof, when every man shall enter into into his eternal presence and into his immortal rest.
D&C 121:29-32

In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people in it.
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 349

Now, the word create came from the word baurau which does not mean to create 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. Elment had an existence from the time he had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 350-52

God created the earth through Jesus Christ. When a building is built there is usually an architect, a foreman, a crew, and many more workers. Would you say it is the person who designed the building who created it? Or the person who oversaw the construction? We call both God and Jesus Christ the creator because they were both involved. God set forth the plan, Jesus Christ carried it forth with the help of others.

And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 3:9

And behold, the glory of the Lord was upon Moses, so that Moses stood in the presence of God, and talked with him face to face. And the Lord God said unto Moses: for mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me. ANd by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth. And worlds without number I have created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten.
Moses 1:31-33

It was Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who, under the direction of his Father, came down and organized matter and made this planet. . . It is true that Adam helped to form this earth. He labored with our Savior Jesus Christ. I have a strong view or conviction that there were others also who assisted them. Perhaps Noah and Enoch; and why not Joseph Smith, and those who were appointed to be rulers before the earth was formed?
Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1:74-77

God created the Earth in seven periods and then set the seventh "day" apart for rest.

But first, what is a day? It is a specified time period; it is an age, an eon, a dvision of eternity; it is the time between two identifiable events. And each day, of whatever length, has the duration needed for its purposes. One measuring rod is the time required for a celestial body to turn once on its axis. . . [See Abraham 3:4] There is no revealed recitation specifying that eacy of the "six days" involved in the Creation was of the sam duration. . . . Abraham gives a bluprint as it were of the Cration. He tells the plans of the holy beings who wrought the creative work. After reciting the events of the "six days" he says: "And thus were their decision at the time that they counseled among themselves to form the heavens and the earth." (Abraham 5:3) Then he says they performed as they had planned, which means we can, by merely changing the verb tenses and without doing violence to the sense and meaning also consider the Abrahamic account as one of the actual creation.
McConkie, "Christ and the Creation," 11

Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day I, God, ended my work, and all things which I made; and I rested on the seventh day from all my work, and all things which I had made were finished, and I, God, saw that they were good; And I, God, blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it I had rested from all my work which I, God, had created and made.
Moses 3:1-3