Clinging to one’s faith in Jesus Christ — no matter how much or how little faith — can help weather questions and doubts, said Elder Clement M. Matswagothata, a General Authority Seventy, at a BYU–Idaho devotional Tuesday, March 10, in Rexburg, Idaho.

Elder Matswagothata shared his experiences, teachings and testimony about navigating doubts and questions while still continuing to build faith.

He also emphasized the importance of building upon one’s faith and taking questions and doubts to the Lord. With patience in the Lord’s timing, these questions will be answered because “God is not silent.”

“Do not let one unanswered question cancel a hundred answered prayers,” Elder Matswagothata said. In times of trouble, “keep walking with Christ.”

‘Does God still speak?’

Growing up in Botswana, Elder Matswagothata had been raised in a place where heaven had “often felt close.”

Though Elder Matswagothata was not born into the Church, his family members had always been committed to the Lord. Through their firm faith, he learned his own.

With this conviction, Elder Matswagothata sought to deepen his knowledge of God. Reading passages from the Bible about prophets that spoke to their people, he wondered, “Does God still speak?”

This questioning resulted in an urgent search, leading him to contend with religious leaders about personal belief. But his faith was not won with words. ”I always walked away feeling empty inside,” he recalled.

While Elder Matswagothata was warned against meeting with missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he saw an opportunity.

“I asked them the same question I had asked many in the past: ‘Do you believe in a God who speaks — like He spoke to Adam, to Moses, to Isaiah, to Elijah and to my favorite prophet, Samuel?’”

The missionaries then relayed the experience of Joseph Smith, another young boy who had the same question.

Elder Matswagothata received a “settled, confident, personal witness” that “God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith and called him to be a Prophet.”

Learning by the Holy Ghost

Elder Matswagothata explained that testimony is “spiritual knowledge placed into a person’s heart and mind by God,” and it is not perfect knowledge.

“The Lord has never required omniscience as the price of discipleship,” he said.

To wondering disciples, he assured them that “faith and questions can coexist,” but they still require “some steps of faith.”

The real enemy to faith in Christ is not questioning, Elder Matswagothata said, but to “drift.”

This slow, turning away from the Savior happens when people “decide to skip once, then twice, then often — until what used to feel normal and natural, like praying daily and searching the scriptures, starts to feel distant,” he said.

To counter drift, covenants “keep us connected to Jesus Christ,” even when faced with spiritually turbulent times.

Elder Matswagothata then shared his own faith-testing experience.

As a missionary, he met with a man that pressed him on the Church’s restriction on priesthood and temple blessings, noting that Elder Matswagothata was of African descent. He had never heard of the restrictions before.

“It felt as if everything I had known about God, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the witness of the Holy Ghost was suddenly harder to reach,” he said.

Seeking comfort, Elder Matswagothata met with his mission president, who invited him to return and bear testimony to the man. He did.

In that moment, “I felt the Lord’s reassurance fill me — almost from head to toe — with ‘peace … which passeth all understanding,’” he said, citing Philippians 4:7.

This experience taught him that unknowns should “not erase what the Holy Ghost had already taught.”

Anchoring faith

“The adversary will always raise questions faster than we can answer them,” said Elder Matswagothata.

“A resilient testimony isn’t built by collecting perfect answers — it’s built by staying with Christ” through study, prayer and acting in faith “and allowing Him to teach you according to His will and timing.”

Elder Matswagothata offered three “anchors” of faith in Christ.

First, stay close to the Savior.

Second, stay grounded in truth by looking for it in “trustworthy places,” such as teachings of living prophets and apostles and scriptures.

And third, stay with the Spirit by choosing “music, media, friendships and habits that invite the Spirit to be with you.”

Elder Matswagothata cited Jesus’ words in John 6. When Jesus taught “a hard saying,” many disciples went away.

Jesus asked the twelve apostles, “Will ye also go away?”

“Everyone faces a ‘Will ye also go away?’ moment. How will you answer yours?” asked Elder Matswagothata.

God’s work will move forward–on a worldwide and personal level.

“Here I stand — a simple man from the African continent — bearing witness of eternal truths and watching that inspired prophecy unfold.”

It’s the talk of the town this week — powerful winds ripped the roof off Lincoln Elementary School on Sunday, leaving students, teachers, and residents in shock.

The incident has sparked concern among homeowners who are now worried about how such weather damage could impact their own homes—and what their insurance would cover.

According to Tauna Locatelli, owner of Advantage Insurance, most insurance policies have a set deductible for things like fire or theft, but wind and hail damage deductibles are often much higher, or even based on a percentage of a property’s value.

Quentin Shores reports – watch the video here:

Wind damage highlights insurance challenges for Montana homeowners

“Right now our industry is going through a really challenging time, especially when it comes to wind and hail in Montana. Several carriers are going to a standard ‘all peril’ deductible for everything other than wind and hail. So, it could be $1,000 for all but wind and hail, $2,500 wind and hail,” Locatelli explained.

A deductible is the amount homeowners must pay before insurance covers the rest. For wind and hail, that deductible can be steep.

“Some companies are going 1 or 2% of a coverage value, so that’s the building value. If it’s insured for $500,000 and you have a 1% deductible, you’re looking at a $5,000 deductible for wind and hail, which is what we get in Montana,” Locatelli said.

It’s important for homeowners to know their deductible—if repairs cost less than the deductible, insurance won’t pay anything.

Filing small claims can also impact your rates; Locatelli said, “Because if you have a $3,000 patch job claim and you have a $5,000 deductible, you really don’t want to file that because you’re not going to get anything in. That claim is going to follow your insurance record for five years.”

Age of property factors in as well. If you have an older roof, insurance may not fully cover its replacement.

“You’ve now lived half the roof life. Well, insurance is about indemnity and putting you back in the same condition you were in before the loss. You can’t put a 16-year-old roof on a home, so at 16 years, they’ll now pay 50% of that roof instead of 100% because it’s already lived half of its life. And then it drops each year as it goes by,” Locatelli added.

The bottom line: Keep your property maintained, review your insurance policy, and think carefully before filing a claim—especially as Montana faces more intense weather.

Retirees Sandra and George Stewart began building their forever home in 1977, in a neighborhood off of Sahara Avenue and Jones Boulevard. They have lived there ever since.

George Stewart, a Vietnam War vet, said homeownership was a welcome prize for his service.

Now, there’s only one problem — the house’s septic system. When it was built, sewer lines did not exist in that part of Las Vegas, and the Stewarts say they now face pressure from local agencies to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to tap into the city sewer system so that the water they use can be recycled and sent back to Lake Mead.

“We’ve worked really hard and paid off our house,” Sandra Stewart said. “Then we retired, and now we’re on a fixed income. There is no way we can afford this. We’ll end up selling our dream home.”

The Stewarts were two of at least a hundred Las Vegas Valley residents who spoke to officials Wednesday during the public comment section of a special board meeting of the Southern Nevada Health District.

Board members, including several public officials from across the valley, unanimously voted to rescind proposed regulations for about 18,000 septic systems in the valley. More than 1,000 people showed up to a public outreach meeting last month to express their dissatisfaction with any change to current regulations.

Though not under consideration at Wednesday’s meeting or the last one, a previous version of the rules could have required homeowners to apply for a permit every five years for $226.

“All I want to say is I am very sorry,” said County Commissioner April Becker, following an hour of public comment that even included a caller from Sandy Valley. “I‘m thankful that you came out every single time. And as painful as these meetings are for me, I’m just happy I’m here right now to be able to vote the way you want me to.”

Water savings, but a supposed health issue, too

Southern Nevada agencies have long pushed for homeowners to consider tapping their homes into the larger wastewater recycling system in the face of what scientists call a “megadrought” that hasn’t let up in two decades.

Assembly Bill 220, signed into law in 2023, gave the Southern Nevada Water Authority the broad legal power to limit residential water use. The bill originally contained a provision that would have required septic-to-sewer conversions but was later amended to make the conversions voluntary.

The water authority has limited funds available to offset the cost of conversions should homeowners wish to apply. Available grants could cover the entire conversion, or at least a good portion of it.

Many homeowners who spoke, like Las Vegas resident Greg Austell, said they see the supposed water savings the region would gain from conversions as a thinly veiled attempt to facilitate the valley’s uncontrolled growth.

“It’s driven politically by the Southern Nevada Water Authority to get water credits,” Austell said. “Why? So we can increase expansion of the valley during a severe drought, which makes no sense. Water is essential to live. Why are we expanding?”

Southern Nevada’s water managers have said that growth is inevitable and necessary to stimulate the economy. Accommodating growth is built in to the region’s long-term water plans, which get updated yearly.

While Las Vegas City Councilwoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong voted with her colleagues on the board and said she admired the community’s persistence, she emphasized that the issue of septic-to-sewer conversions must be re-visited in the future.

“At some point, we’ve got to find a way to come to a happy medium, or a compromise,” she said. “Water is a real issue, and none of us will be able to remain living here without it.”

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.