Flood the Earth response

Elder David A. Bednar's talk "To Sweep the Earth as with a Flood" successfully sparked a feeling of excitement among church members, especially those of the rising generation.

He begins by talking about how special it is that we live in a "most remarkable dispensation", even the fullness of times, and evokes emotion in us through pathos. He instills in us a sense of privilege to live in this day and age. Elder Bednar uses a logical comparison of how long it used to take to send a message to another person to the amount of time it now takes in order to help us recognize just how privileged we are. He uses words like "exciting", "unique", "greatest", "miraculous", and "possibilities" to get us excited about this work. Continuing, he explains how technology can be used to further the Lord's purposes. This had an impact on the younger generation who is so immersed in the use of technological devices.

Elder Bednar appealed to ethos, adding authority to his argument, by quoting other apostles of the church including the quote from Brigham Young about using inventions to further the "triumph of truth." He also backs up his insights with scripture. Adding to the logic of his argument, Elder Bednar presents several statistics about technology use, such as the percentage of missionaries who will be using digital devices as tools in mission field and the number of average monthly users of popular social media sites. This also gives us a sense of the vastness of the online world and how many people we can have an influence on through social media.

He engages the listeners by showing some inspiring videos made by the Church and presents statistics about the impact the videos had. Subsequently, he talks about the general authorities having social media accounts, which provides ethos by showing that they are setting the example. Relating with the younger audience, he talks about the usefulness of gospel-related hashtags. Finally, he gives another jolt of excitement by giving us a sneak peak of the "Meet the Mormons" film that was about to be released. He continues his talk by giving us advice on how to utilize these tools to do missionary work and the resources available as a complement to those tools.

In conclusion, Elder Bednar warns us about the dangers of misusing technology. He uses words like "perils", "warning", "suffocating", "pervasive", "intense", and "destructive" to evoke a sense of seriousness and caution. Nevertheless, he ends on a positive note by refocusing on the possibilities for doing good through technology. The imagery he uses in his closing invitation helps to make the message stick in our minds.