Reflections on Church

I arrived at church at 8:30am for my Temple Recommend interview. . .
Sacrament meeting was good - except we've been singing odd songs - mom says it's because the stake asked that we practice? singing them some, because they will be sung at Stake Conference. Fun. Jordan, Teresa, and President Watt spoke.
President Watt talked about his daughter that got involved in bobsledding. How the very first time she did it, she hated it, was sick, etc - never wanted to do it again, but he told her to do it again. She did, and she loved it. Sometimes in our life there are extremely hard things we deal with, and we sometimes need to try again - - or just process back through it to realize what we've learned.He talked about how (once she was better at it and competitive) she was able to effectively maneuver the course going sooo fast. (He said they cover about a mile of turns and such in approximately 50 seconds.) She said before they ever go down a course, they walk it - figuring out exactly what they would do at each turn in order to be successful. In other words, by the time they went down the course, they had already made all the decisions they needed to make. He related this to our life - and how we need to "walk the course" so to speak, first - make the big decisions ahead of time, so we don't fall.
I started thinking about my experience this Summer - going on my trip. All in all, I'm sure if I would really allow myself to process it, there is SOoo much I could learn. I did learn a lot - but more than that, I'm thankful that I had "walked the course" before this trip. Even though I had no idea what would actually happen on the trip, there were plenty of things I knew WOULD not happen - and I am thankful for that assurance. During his talk, I processed that 10 years ago, had I gone on a trip like this, I would have been so sure (and naive) that nothing would happen regardless, and would have been quite careless. All probably would have still been fine, but I think back to the attitude I had at 18-19 - and while it wasn't actively rebellious, it was one of teenage-stubborness. Then I thought about what the trip would have been like 5 years ago. Then, I kinda was rebellious - and would have most likely actively not cared what happened. I'm thankful that I am in a place in my life - where I do care, and I actively live my life the way I do. (I know that doesn't really make sense. Oh, well.) Anyway - of course, this was not "all me" - he of course has the same convictions - which is also awesome. Blah blah blah. Suffice it to say, I was grateful with the trip from that stance.
THEN, I started thinking even a bit deeper - - - perhaps this trip WAS my walk-through for some future lesson. I like thinking about it that way - -that there is something coming in my life. I really do need to figure out what all I can learn from the past several months events (or lack there of :) )
Primary was ok - not great, but not bad, either. The kids were not as calm as they have been over the past several weeks, but thankfully, we did have 4 teachers there. Whoo-hoo!