You haven't answered a key question. You wrote "......I was able to land safely......"

What was the person on the other end of the trainer cord doing? Why did this person allow you to land a plane that was unflyable by a new pilot?

A qualified instructor would:
Do a preflight inspection himself and help you make any obvious adjustments
Do a trim flight and land safely
Hook up the buddy box and get it trimmed to match the master
Take off, gain altitude, give you control to check trims
Help you make minor trim changes if needed
Give you control, advise you on turns and altitude adjustments. Take control, if necessary, to avoid a crash or other dangerous situaton
Take control and do the landing

On subsequent flights, the instructor would have you do the takeoff and landing.

Once you get the plane back together, whoever is helping you needs to get the plane flyable before giving you control of it. Otherwise you'll need to have a really big checkbook.