My favorite General Conference talk.

This year the weekend of general conference I working both Saturday and Sunday, so I only got to see the Saturday morning session as it was being broadcast. I was grateful that this is the session I saw when I got to hear the announcement of the new temples and especially the new Provo temple. As I watched this session, Elder Deider F. Uchtdorf’s talk entitled “You Matter to Him” became my favorite, and despite having watched or listened to most of conference since this talk has remained my favorite. In this talk, Elder Uchtdorf lovingly conveys his powerful message through the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos.

                President Uchtdorf is a member of the twelve apostles in the Church, and therefore goes into his talk with a sense of ethos already established, at least for members of the Church. Rather than build up his credibility, which is already established by his mere identity, he tries to make himself relatable to his audience. By telling personal stories, particularly the one about his training as a pilot at school in Texas, he becomes much more of a real person who has had his own struggles and experiences. When he talks about his struggle to learn English or his misgivings about school, the audience can relate to him from having similar experiences. Through stories, President Uchtdorf makes himself a regular person like everyone else, and therefore is able to engage an audience.

                The strongest rhetorical appeal that President Uchtdork uses, however, is the rhetorical appeal of pathos. The very title of his talk is meant to build up the audience’s sense of self-worth and let them know that individually, they each matter to the divine. Throughout his talk, he makes the point that man is insignificant, yet not to God. This resonates with people emotionally, because at some point everyone has questioned how much they really matter; yet here he is telling people that they matter a great deal, and to the most important and powerful being in the universe. By using emotions most people have felt and then giving them the promise of love that most people seek, President Uchtdorf powerfully uses pathos in his statements.

                Logos is the final appeal that President Uctdorf uses in his talk to appeal to the audience. He does this by using scriptures mixed with his words to give them weight that scriptural references hold. Much of the world has read the bible and most religions have some scriptural text they use, so scriptures appeal to people’s logic. They are generally accepted and therefore using them in an address like this one makes it appeal logically to an audience.

                Through the uses of these three appeals, ethos, pathos and logos, President Uchtdorf builds a compelling talk that resonates powerfully with his audience.