How Elder Holland Delivers a Talk or How President Monson delivers a story

http://equalitysblog.typepad.com/equality_time/2009/10/understanding-elder-hollands-safety-for-the-soul-general-conference-address.html

Structure

Content

Delivery

Rhythm – Giving us time to take in and appreciate what’s being said.

Power of Imagery

Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable (Basically a message that can be taken differently by different people)

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2013/04/lord-i-believe?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2008/10/the-ministry-of-angels?lang=eng

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2012/10/the-first-great-commandment?lang=eng

You need him talking about himself, or other people talking about him.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/2011/04/an-ensign-to-the-nations?lang=eng

“If we teach by the Spirit and you listen by the Spirit, some one of us will touch on your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you,” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said during his April 2011 general conference address.

with rare exception, no man or woman who speaks here is assigned a topic. Each is to fast and pray, study and seek, start and stop and start again until he or she is confident that for this conference, at this time, his or hers is the topic the Lord wishes that speaker to present

We are commanded in the scriptures to “say nothing but repentance unto this generation,”⁶ while at the same time we are to preach “good tidings [to] the meek … [and] bind up the brokenhearted.” Whatever form they take, these conference messages “proclaim liberty to the captives”⁷ and declare “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”

President Harold B. Lee put it best years ago when he said that the gospel is “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the [comfortable].”⁹

We always want our teaching in general conference to be as generous and open-armed as Christ taught originally, remembering as we do the discipline that was always inherent in His messages.

In the most famous sermon ever given, Jesus began by pronouncing wonderfully gentle blessings which every one of us want to claim—blessings promised to the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the meek.¹⁰ How edifying those Beatitudes are and how soothing they are to the soul. They are true. But in that same sermon the Savior went on, showing how increasingly strait the way of the peacemaker and the pure in heart would need to be. “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill,” He observed. “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother … shall be in danger of the judgment.”¹¹

In wanting to measure up to the stern as well as embrace the soothing in our general conference messages, please be reassured that when we speak on difficult subjects, we understand not everyone is viewing pornography or shirking marriage or having illicit sexual relationships. We know not everyone is violating the Sabbath or bearing false witness or abusing a spouse. We know that most in our audience are not guilty of such things, but we are under a solemn charge to issue warning calls to those who are

Every sermon given is always, by definition, both a testimony of love and a warning, even as nature herself will testify with love and a warning in the last days.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/general-conference/1998/04/a-teacher-come-from-god?lang=eng&_r=1

Most people don’t come to church looking merely for a few new gospel facts or to see old friends, though all of that is important. They come seeking a spiritual experience. They want peace. They want their faith fortified and their hope renewed. They want, in short, to be nourished by the good word of God, to be strengthened by the powers of heaven. Those of us who are called upon to speak or teach or lead have an obligation to help provide that, as best we possibly can.

Dalin H. Oaks said:

In his drafting process, he reads his talk to his wife, Kristen, and shares it with other General Authorities to get other points of view. He said, “[Inevitably] they will say, ‘You’ve said this, but you might be understood as saying that. Don’t you think you better clarify?’ . . . I get good help along the way.”

https://www.mormonchannel.org/listen/series/conversations-audio/elder-and-sister-oaks-episode-9