[help during a math test]

One of my favorite things is to hear stories of how The Holy Spirit has influenced people. Steven Baugh shared this in his BYU Devotional talk.

In Alma 34:20 we are invited to “cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks” (see also Alma 34:17–27). Thinking of fields and flocks reminds me of an experience I had recently while attending a sacrament meeting in a BYU Asian ward. A good Asian brother told of praying prior to taking a calculus test to be calm and to remember the things he had studied. He was doing pretty well until he came upon a problem that required him to convert feet into inches. He knew how to do the problem but could not complete it until he could make the conversion. However, he didn’t understand feet and inches because all of his schooling had been in the metric system. He prayed again, like the people of Alma who prayed silently and had their burdens lifted (see Mosiah 24:12–15). Then into his mind came the image of an advertisement he had seen recently of a foot-long sandwich; the ad said that it could be divided into two 6-inch sandwiches. Knowing that a foot is 12 inches, he was able to complete the problem.

The Lord knows when each sparrow falls. He knows each of us. He wants to be involved in the details of our lives, and the whispering of the Spirit is one of the ways He does this. Prayer is one way that we invite Him to give us this blessing.

Steven Baugh also shared this:

President Boyd K. Packer illustrated this principle with his story of the little girl who prayed that her brother would not catch birds in his trap. After she prayed, she told her mother that she was positive her brother wouldn’t catch any more birds. Her mother asked her how she knew. The little girl replied that after she prayed, she had gone out and kicked the trap to pieces (see “Prayer and Promptings,” Ensign, November 2009, 46).