Chance Favour Only the Prepared Mind

Louis Pasteur, a famous and influential microbiologist said, "Chance favours only the prepared mind." First let's consider the experiences that this quote is coming from. Louis Pasteur was studying small pox, I believe, and was growing cultures of the bacteria and injecting the "germs" into chickens to study the bacteria's affect on them. At one point during his research, he went on vacation, and upon his return he injected some old bacteria into his chickens. Strangely, the chickens didn't get sick. When he injected those same chickens with a fresh batch of bacteria, the chickens still didn't get sick. Without some understanding of germs and how they work and a big dose of creativity, and an inquisitive mind, he never would have concluded that perhaps the weaker bacteria from the first dose helped the chickens build up immunity to further, more hearty bacteria. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Man this girl's a nerd!" but I have a point, I promise. So many scientific discoveries, like this one, were made "by accident," by someone who was prepared to make something of it! Had an uneducated farmer made the same observations, he may not have come up with the same conclusions. Likewise, we all have experiences and we learn from them and we use what we have learned to make more, and hopefully wiser, decisions.
I have been having a rather difficult time here making new friends. My ward is huge and, for the most part, no one feels like we have any unity. I have experienced a huge learning curve this week in terms of what I need to be doing differently to change that. This new perspective has completely changed my experience. I have met and gotten to know so many more people. I have hung out with people I wouldn't have otherwise and it's just so nice. It wasn't the ward and it wasn't chance that anything changed. I couldn't have forced anything to change myself, but because of my change of attitude, opportunities have fallen into my lap that I never would have experienced. Chance favoured only my prepared mind!
Happy Sabbath (what's left of it anyway!!)!