Fifthziff

It depends on what you mean by "personality and temperament". Certainly the "personality and temperament" that the Lord sees, the inner man is continued. We do not have any way, though, to know how much the outer man "personality and temperament" is continued into the next life. One proof of that is how we would look at the temperament of one who has paranoid schizophrenia, I doubt that one would say that that particular temperament would continue into the next life. As dramatic as that is example is, one would have to understand that we all have corrupted bodies (brains) that make us lower beings than our spirit's personality would otherwise reflect. The question to ponder is how much lower? For some reason, some people think that we haven't fallen that far, that we are only a little bit blocked by the veil or we have only fallen a little. If one believes that, then I could see how one would suggest that our outward personality continues to the next. I believe that we have fallen dramatically, to a hardly recognizable state of being during this life. I can't imagine millions and millions of years (or however long it was) developing into mature spirit beings in the presence of our Heavenly Father looks anything like our current set of attributes. This life is a fallen test state that has no 1:1 correlation or other constant formula that we can determine with our previous life or the one to come in terms of the number of talents or traits we have here, for example, those with Down's syndrome have no comparative correlation between spirit intelligence vs human brain (natural being) intelligence.

I think one of the main messages of the creation story is to let us know that this life is one small step in a multi-step process. Many don't see the perspective that the creation story provides. It gives us an idea of the reason for this life. Most would suggest that this life is it, there is no 'behind the scenes' reason to be here. Because of the creation story we better understand the perspective that this life is a short time in the bigger process of becoming like our Father in Heaven. We understand that in order to be tested we had to be exposed to agency, right vs wrong. And in order to be exposed to that we had to Fall from His presence. We could not be exposed to that choice and remain in His presence at the same time any more than a young adult could be "on her own" while living in her parent's home. This is why we are momentarily cut off, we die. To mature we had to have a chance to show that we could take on stewardship and fulfill our promises. If we Fall from his presence we need a way back which is through the gospel and through Jesus Christ with which we can live again. The creation story sets the scene for all that takes place in this life which again is one step of many and not everything. On the other hand, if one believes we are here by random chance and not design then one cannot begin to understand the purpose of this life. There is no purpose if it is a random event. There would be no before or after. The creation story provides the premise for the purpose of this life. I don't think we need to read a whole lot more into it than that.

The atonement is also a demonstration of God's ability to use vicarious experience. His eternal glory is dependent in this ability demonstrated by Christ. He can feel what others experience as if His own. This is a demonstration of what Celestial Life is like. The only way to feel and experience what others have experienced is to love them as self, that is why that is the greatest commandment and Christ did that. As Traveler stated, it is a lesson of how an individual can become more than an individual, by being at one with others. Man was not meant to be alone. There is no greater oneness we can achieve than experiencing something someone else has experienced as if it is something we did ourselves. This is why accepting something that someone did for us is also important. We have to accept Christ's atonement. This is important in learning this principle as well. That is something Lucifer couldn't imagine doing so he rebelled.

Moses had perspective as to how little man knows when he said that he never supposed man was nothing.