Exactly. Like you said, more than a few of us just accepted what we were taught without investigating it for ourselves.
Matt 24:29-31 is not about the Rapture. In that passage the Angels are sent out to go agathering. In the Rapture an Angel speaks and a trumpet sounds, and there are no angels -plural- going gathering because the Raptured are caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and return to the Father’s House.
Yes I never thought I did that because i so respected my teachers on the things I had studied for myself, they were scripturally correct on most things. I don’t make that mistake any more and have learned correctly so much since. Very grateful to the Holy Spirit that he didn’t leave me in my former state.