【推荐1】Every Wednesday, I go to Cantata Adult Life Services, a local retirement community in Brookfield, Illinois, US, with my classmates to do community service. Since my very first ________ to Cantata, volunteering with the elderly has ________ my life, which may sound a bit dramatic, though.

Our visits last about an hour, and we bring 25-30 ________ every time. We play board games and cards with the ________ while we’re there. You can watch all the movies and TV shows you want about “life ________ then”, but ________ compares to talking to the people who were actually there. Just hearing their stories has ________ me in a way I never thought possible.

Whether it was talking to 98-year-old “Hurricane Hilda” about her glory days as a roller skater or ________ with Lou about the times she danced with a famous actor, I was completely ________ by every single memory the residents wanted to share with me.

Even the residents who don’t have amazing memories make the experience ________ . I still ________ visiting Mrs. Robinson. She couldn’t ________ much about her past, but she told me she’d never forget how kind I was just to listen to her “ ________ ”. It made me realize that it’s the little things that make life ________ living. That’s something I won’t forget anytime soon.

It’s easy to feel like you don’t have anything ________ with the elderly—especially when you’re a teenager. ________ for me, it feels great to be a source of happiness, a smile on a bad day or a ________ ear for old memories. ________ really is just a number. As young adults, it’s important for us to realize this sooner ________ later. We can learn a lot from the elderly, and they can often ________ from teenagers, too.

【推荐3】What do you do with an orchid (兰花) after its petals have fallen off? ______ you’re an expert on growing these plants, you may find that they never ______ for you again.

Just like most things rare and beautiful, they don’t _______forever. They all have their own life cycle. And it’s always a little sad when the petals ______.

I can’t ______ just throwing out orchids. I usually put the green leafed plants outside, and I’ve even tried putting them in the ground a couple of times, but in ______. After so much ______ and error, I was almost ______ that they would never rebloomed.

This year,______, my lovely wife had other ideas.

A few of the plants were moved to a table in the living room, and some others were ______ on the kitchen window. I happily gave up ______ what to do with my flowerless orchids, and let my wife take over trying to help them.

At some points in life, even the most magnificent events come to a(n)______. Life and love are only the two most obvious. Actually,______ we ever create or get involved with has its own life ________.

Sure, you can ______ hope. It was certainly easy to believe that those orchids would never flower again – that is, until my wife decided to come to their ______.

My wife kept moving the plants around the house, looking for the right light. ______, the orchids stayed alive. Tiny new stems (茎) grew from the old ones a year later. And now, nearly all of them are flowering.

Yes, you can ______everything you think is important – your beauty, your wealth, even your family – but as long as you are alive, you can find new life within something you thought was never going to bloom (开花) again. Never lose ______ on finding new life, even if the chance is ______.

【推荐1】On a Friday evening in December, two weeks before Christmas. I lost my job. I hadn’t seen it coming. I was _________ for the weekend, when my daughter, Kristil and I planned to get our Christmas tree. Then I listened to my voicemail. “We’re sorry but your work assignment has _________ as of today.” My heart _________.

I wasn’t just a single parent; I was the only parent. My paycheck(薪水)was _________.

Monday morning, I _________ on my moneymaking pursuits. I headed to the pawnshop(当铺)with a gold ring and then the antiques store with six precious figurines, ending the day $220 _________.

Over the next week, I desperately _________ for jobs as my bank account grew _________.

Back at home. I glanced out the window. I noticed a woman _________ to open her car door against the strong wind. As she got out, I __________ it was Sister Esther Heffernan.

I’d first met Sister Esther 10 years earlier when I was her student at Edgewood College. Kristil was 3 then, and I sometimes took her to class. Sister Esther was __________ and would bring coloring books to __________ Kristil. Even after I graduated Sister Esther kept in touch.

I rushed out and invited her inside. I made her a cup of tea, and we talked. Just being in Sister Esther’s __________ gave me hope that things would be all right.

As she got up to leave, she handed me a Christmas card.

When I opened her card, I found myself in __________. Hundred-dollar bills fell onto the table. Tears of __________ welled up in my eyes. Sister Esther had given me $1.000.

【推荐2】When I first moved to a city in the south, I realized that I was stepping into a completely different world. It was ________ any other place I had ever been to. What surprised me more than anything else was its people’s constant ________.

“What can I get for you, honey?” a waitress asked me on my first day here.

I was ________. This woman didn’t know me, ________ she treated me like family. She smiled down at me as I pointed to an item on the ________.

“Is the pasta good?” I asked her.

“Baby, it’s not my favorite,” she ________ with a smile.

I ________ my “family” in shock. She had given me her honest _______, as if we were best friends.

After a few years here, I got ________ to the honeys and the babies. I also realized how comforting it is to be treated like I _______, wherever I go.

I recently went to the DMV(车管局) to update my driver’s license. As I was sitting in the ________ room with at least twenty other people, a woman walked in.

“Good morning!” she ________ to the room.

“Good morning,” the whole room said back without ________. Soon the room was quiet again and everyone was comfortable with each other.

The woman took her _______, and waited with everyone else for her number to be ________.

Even after eight years of living here, it still makes me _______to know that I am not alone here. Someone is always ________ to say hello or lend a hand when needed. It is the kind of ________ that I have never been able to find anywhere else.

So I believe in treating people you don’t know like family, making people feel ________. No one should feel lonely even when they walk into a room full of ________.

【推荐3】Maybe you've heard the saying, “A bird with a broken wing will never fly as high.” I'm sure that T. J. Ware _______this way almost every day in school, for he was caught stealing a year ago.

I met T. J. for the first time at a weekend leadership programme. At the _______ of the programme, T. J. was literally standing outside the circle of students, _______ the back wall. He didn't readily join the discussion groups. But slowly, the interactive games _______ him in.

The ice really _______ when the groups started building a list of positive and negative things that had occurred at school that year. T. J. had some definite thoughts on those situations. The other students in T. J.'s group welcomed his_______. All of a sudden T. J. felt like a part of the group, and before long he was being treated like a _______. The next day, T. J. was very _______ in all the sessions. By the end of the programme, he had _______ the Homeless Project team. He knew something about poverty, hunger and ________. The other students on the team were ________ with his passionate concern and ideas. They elected T. J. co-chairman of the team.

Two weeks later, T. J. and his friends led a group of 70 students in a ________ to collect food. They collected a school record: 2, 854 cans of food in just two hours. The local newspaper ________ the event with a full-page article the next day. That newspaper story was ________ on the main bulletin board at school, where ________could see it. T. J. 's picture was up there for leading a ________ food drive. Every day he was reminded about what he did. He was being ________ as leadership material.

T. J. started ________ at school every day and answered questions from teachers for the first time. He led a ________project for the homeless shelter.

T. J. reminds us that a bird with a broken wing only needs ________. But once it has healed, it can fly higher than the rest.