Space, The Final Frontier

If you ask any woman above the age of 50 who their favorite speaker at General Conference is they will no doubt say Elder Dieter F Uchtdorf is in their top 3. When you ask them why, they will simply reply with "he's such a hunk". But there's more to Elder Uchtdorf than just his looks. This General Conference his talk was definitely one of my favorites.
He's known for his stories on aviation and this conference he didn't disappoint. Right off the bat he recalls some experiences from his flying days. He uses amazing imagery through this to help us picture what he was seeing. Allusion is a tool he uses throughout his talk. Continuing with the space and flight theme he talks about our understanding of the universe. Showing us how really small we are and how throughout history we've grown to understand the universe more and more. He then compares this to the gospel. It is almost chiasmus in it's form. This analogy is one that stays present throughout his entire talk. He breaks down the gospel to its simplest form and though he uses figurative language and amazing imagery he doesn't over complicate it with bells and whistles. He tells it like it is, and this is something that is true of all the speakers.
My favorite part of his talk, and the part that I felt was the most powerful is his use of imagery. He describes light, in both the stars and just the light of the truth of the gospel, and this continued and repetitive theme hit me harder and harder every time he came back to it. He compares the gospel to light. And one of my favorite quotes from his talk is "The process of gaining spiritual light is a process of a lifetime". This shows to us the importance of the gospel always being a present "light" in our lives.
Though he is telling it how it is, he isn't beating us down. It is agreed among many that the most memorable quote of his entire talk is " There is no sign on the door that says 'your testimony must be this tall to enter'" This is also an amazing example of him creating ethos, humor, to calm his audience and relate to them on a deeper level.

Jorg Klebingat Keeps It Simple

The talk I decided to analyze was given by Jorg Klebingat in the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference entitled  “Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence” and I’m going to compare to the talk given by President Uchtdorf entitled “Lord, is it I?”.

Elder Jorg Klebingat immediately surprised be because he was speaking in English with his clearly foreign name, considering the change of format and allowing speakers to use their native languages, but he didn’t despite the slight accent. He is from Germany which naturally gave him connections to to President Uchtdorf. Both are very competent in english, and very adept speakers despite the slight accent in their voices. They are both very concise in their statements, which makes their purpose and meaning so very clear. Having learned a foreign language myself, I fill at times it makes you simplify what you are going to say so that you get straight to the point so that no meaning is lost, because that is the most important thing. If you make it too complicated, then obviously your meaning is lost. 

This also allows both of them to speak with boldness and confidence in their words. Neither got overly emotional, but instead kept a very calm and collected tone throughout. They both told stories, it illustrate the points that they are trying to make. These stories are also concise enough so that you don’t forget the reason that they are probably telling the story for. The best thing about both of these speakers is simply their simple word choice. They use simple words, so that understanding is immediate. This keeps the attention of everyone in the audience and not just the english scholars.