did we know our parents in the pre-existence?

no. if we knew who our parents were going to be in the pre-existance, then our parents getting together and doing the naughty was destined and inevitable. that might sound fine for most of us, but if this were true, then for some persons it was necessary from the beginning that they be conceived by rape, incest, and pre-marital sex (or all of the above).

this denial leads to some other things as well. if our parents were not foreknown, then our pre-mortal spirits did not resemble our mortal bodies. our genetics control how we look. we get our genes from our parents, blah blah blah, you can figure out the rest. i guess you could say that there are enough spirit persons, that god can match spirits to their genetic match at conception, but that just seems unlikely.

what about jesus appearing to the brother of jared? i dunno. maybe since god knew jesus would be his son, he knew already how he would look. this brings up another question though. if jesus were also the genetic son of mary, how could jesus look exactly like his father? i guess that maybe mary could have been the female genetic match of god the father, or that the genes worked together just perfectly to make the father and son identical. or maybe jesus is a genetic clone of his father? sure it sounds like science fiction, but doesn't two beings descending from the sky in a pillar of light (js first vision) sound a bit like science fiction.