Extra Credit Post!

    I appreciate that during the course of the semester we have had a variety of ways of going about conferences, drafts, and outline dates. I really liked the way that the OpEd was set up with its dates. I feel that meeting one week before the due date was an appropriate amount of time. It gave us plenty of time to finish our rough draft so you were able to see what we had to work with. Also, giving us a week before the due date, we had adequate time to revise our draft. At the same time, having a conference with you so early in the writing process for our issues paper was beneficial to me. I had a difficult time coming up with my topic so having our conference early on I was able to be better grounded.

  As for General Conference, I am stoked! Not going to lie, it took me until I was probably 14 to really start enjoying general conference. Before that, it was eight, long hours of church talks in one weekends time, not to mention the lack of seeing my church friends once during the week. As I have aged, and gained knowledge, I have come to look forward and even love General Conference weekend. Each conference I love hearing from the apostles and leaders of our church, coming with a list of questions that I almost expect to be addressed. I particularly enjoy listening to President Uchtdorf, Elder Holland, and President Monson. President Uchtdorf tells great stories, Elder Holland is funny and refreshingly direct, and President Monson is just so full of love for all people. I’ll begin with President Monson. President Monson generally opens or concludes a session. He uses pathos to establish almost a “bond” with the audience. He plays on people’s emotions through the Spirit and His love for all. Elder Holland, like most leaders of the church, is well educated, receiving a Master and Doctor from Yale. This creates ethos with His listeners. Knowing he is a well-educated man. He then speaks with such power, and at times humorously gaining our trust and love. Lastly, President Uchtdorf is known for his airplane stories in particular but beyond that he uses rhetorical devices such as analogies. These analogies are well known and understood. For example, he made an analogy of small and simple things in life to forget-me-not flowers. Even though less grand than some things, he encouraged us to not look over the smaller, yet beautiful things or blessings in our life.