switch points

i had thought about doing a 9/11 commemorative post here today and have enjoyed reading everyone's reflections on facebook today.  however, meh, i just wasn't feeling it and instead wanted to share what we talked about in sunday school today.

the lesson started of with a story from president hinckley and an experience he had while working in a train yard.  he said that a car had arrived in newark, new jersey without its baggage car.  as they traced the route of the missing car, they found that it had traveled from california to st. louis safely, but there it was careless switched an ended up in new orleans, louisiana.  1,300 miles from its destination.

yes, i think we've all heard these stories and analogies before, about how adjusting the switch point three inches can lead to a 1,300 mile difference in the end.  but i liked this one for some reason.

and we talked about different switch points in our lives.  the bishop informed me today that i've been going over my lessons by ten minutes for... oh, the past ten months (i knew that sunday school was 40 minutes, but when started teaching i was told to go until ten after the hour, which made for a 50 minute lesson, and no said otherwise, so yeah...), so we only talked about the switch point of setting good relationships as husband+wife and in how we approach the sacrament.

in years of teaching sunday school (when we hit hebrews in a few weeks, that will complete my cycle of the standard works as a sunday school teacher, excepting a few brief moments between changing wards), i've learned to plan out your endgame, to know how you're going to close your lesson and bring everything around to a relevant conclusion.
today, i closed with 1 cor. 15:9-10, where paul notes that he had a rough past and felt that he was the least of the apostles.  he had missed some switch points earlier in his life, but he had made the effort to make the change and to start taking the better tracks when he came to his switch points.  no matter where we are, there are always switch points available to us.  some won't get us back to where we want to be, but they will get us back on the right track and that's pretty dang great.