Thoughts on evolution

I attended a very liberal, private school where science was the only truth and most people's religion was academia. i learned evolution as an absolute truth there. however having also been raised in such a conservative LDS background i feel caught in the crossfire between evolution and creation.

Because of my sometimes conflicting sources of knowledge i developed a personal opinion that god could have created man through evolution. i am sure that i am not the only LDS youth who wants to reconcile the two ideas. however having read a few talks by the brethren i dont know that i actually believe that anymore. the first being "The Origin of Man" by the First Presidency in 1909 and the second being "The Seven Deadly Heresies" by Bruce R. McConkie.
they both give pretty concise statements as to the true origins of man: "It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in theafter the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father." (Origin of man).
And..."Heresy two concerns itself with the relationship between organic evolution and revealed religion and asks the question whether they can be harmonized. There are those who believe that the theory of organic evolution runs counter to the plain and explicit principles set forth in the holy scriptures as these have been interpreted and taught by Joseph Smith and his associates. There are others who think that evolution is the system used by the Lord to form plant and animal life and to place man on earth....Adam was placed on this earth as an immortal being; that there was no death in the world for him or for any form of life until after the Fall; that the fall of Adam brought temporal and spiritual death into the world; that this temporal death passed upon all forms of life, upon man and animal and fish and fowl and plant life; that Christ came to ransom man and all forms of life from the effects of the temporal death brought into the world through the Fall, and in the case of man from a spiritual death also; and that this ransom includes a resurrection for man and for all forms of life? Can you harmonize these things with the evolutionary postulate that death has always existed and that the various forms of life have evolved from preceding forms over astronomically long periods of time?" (McConkie). These statements leave little room for personal opinion. I dont fully know how to reconcile the the evidences of science and my religion. luckily this doesn't have any bearing on my salvation. i can just take it on faith.

On the subject of natural selection however i have a much difference view. I have been to the galapagos islands and i have seen the variations on species that i thought were absolutely amazing. There were iguanas that can swim, crabs that have only one large claw, and hundreds of types of a single species of bird. having seen first hand the effects of natural selection i am quite convinced of its truth. here is a great prezi to explain the basics of natural selection.