JOEL - Actually the suffering Christ experienced in the garden was specifically for our sins. There He accepted all the punishment for every sin that anyone would ever commit if they repent.
The suffering and death on the cross was part of the atonement, but not really related to our sins. He did not die in our place; He suffered in our place. He died for us on the cross so that He could effect the resurrection and make possible eternal life for us.
Christ and God are omnipotent but the experience of Christ suffering for our sins made Him more personnally aware of what all people suffer when they sin. Knowledge is one thing; experience is another. And the experience He had in the Garden helps Him understand what we are going through and makes Him fully qualified to be our judge and mercifully determine our place in heaven.
In Alma we read:

"And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities." (Alma 7:12)

Christ "descended below all things"—including every kind of sickness, infirmity, and dark despair experienced by every mortal being—in order that he might "comprehend all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth" (D&C 88:6).
But this wasn't the main reason He suffered. The main reason as I said was to take the punishment in our place for our repented sins so we have a chance at eternal life.

TANYA - Is Heavenly Father personally aware lilke Jesus of our sufferings? Is he hurt when we are, has he experienced the same kind of suffering we have? It would stand to reason since he is our father that he would; since Heavenly Father is above Jesus, but equal to Him. Is there any scripture in reference to this?

JOEL - We assume Heavenly Father is just as aware of what we go through as Jesus was. Jesus once said:

"If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.(John 14:7)

"Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." (John 5:19)

Here it sounds like Jesus is saying that everything that He is and knows and has done was done by the Father as well.