Elder Quentin L. Cook: A Storyteller at Heart

          Elder Quentin L. Cook this April's conference addressed his fellow audience on the importance of choices and decisions. A rhetorical element that he used and has a tendency of using is the use of stories in his talks. Because Elder Cook was a lawyer for over 27 years, he has had variety of interactions an experiences with many different kinds of people. Because of this experience, he knows how to interact and connect emotionally with an intended audience, and one way he does this is through stories.

            Looking at his talk called "Choose Wisely" from the October 2014 conference, and another General Conference talk called      “ Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness” from the April 2013 conference, he loves to use stories to illustrates his points, and evoke emotion out of the audience in the form of keeping their attention, as well as internalizing it. For example in this past conference, he used the stories of the Peanuts comic and Merlin Olson to bring humor into his talk, and to keep the attention of the audience. Which was confirmed by the audience reaction of laughing. These stories also illustrated his main point of making key choices and decisions. 

         In his other talk, his stories have a different impact on his audience. To match the somber tone of his talk, he uses poignant stories about the Ivory Coast, 9/11 attacks, and the Elementary School Shooting in Connecticut.  These stories also draw an emotional response from the audience, but in a different way that forces the audience to think and reflect. Through these examples, its very clear to me that Elder Cook loves to use stories to bring Pathos to his talks, as well to bring Logos into his talk.  The emotional appeal of his stories draws the audience in like a hook, and continues to string them along the rest of his talk. He is a storyteller at heart.