1 . When I was a little boy growing up, I would always change out of my good clothes after church and run outside to play for a few hours. When I came back inside, the house always smelt ________. It was my Italian Nana ________ our Sunday dinner. There would be freshly cooked Italian bread with butter. There would be noodles covered in red sauce (调味汁)________ cooked for hours.

I remember we would all ________ the old, metal dining room table. Then we would ________ with smiles, laughter and joy. I always felt so ________ and safe there. We always ________ the table with full stomachs and happy hearts.

As I got older and became an adult myself, I ________ to make smaller types of Nana’s Sunday dinners. I got the ________ of making sauce from Dad. Often I would get very close to making a dinner like Nana’s but it was never quite ________.

There finally came a point when I ________ what I was doing wrong. I was trying to get back a ________ while what I really wanted to do was get back a feeling. It wasn’t just the ________ food that made those dinners so wonderful, it was also the feeling of ________ that was there.

Nana always put her love into her cooking and her life as well. Since then I’ve tried my best to do the same. No matter what I am cooking or what I am doing, I always try to ________ it with love.

3 . Romero is an 84-year-old man. He owes his _______ to his pet dog, Palomo, who took _______ to him after he got lost in the _______ for a week.

On November 27, Romero left his home for a walk, but he didn’t come back _______. His family wasn’t _______ at first as he used to walked to _______ villages and would be back a few days later. However, after four days, the man’s niece, Ramona, panicked and _______ it to the local authorities and a search party was put together.   

The police with trained dogs were brought in to _______ Romero. They searched the area around, but a week after his _______, Romero was nowhere to be found. That’s when the old man’s ________ dog, Palomo, was brought in as the last ________.

According to one member of the search team, the brown dog ________ them through hills and valleys and finally to the place in the desert where Romero had been ________. His niece told the authorities that Romero sometimes had poor memory and that ________ his getting lost on his trip.

The ________ weak man was rushed to the hospital where he spent two days getting back on his feet. One officer commented online that “Palomo ________ by the hospital door day and night waiting for the ________ of its beloved Romero. It is the unconditional love of his pet ________ allowed Romero to be ________ with his family”. A photo of Palomo staying by Romero’s side after he came back home was ________ along with these words.

4 . One day, I was doing nothing but passing the time ________I came across an advertisement where you could apply to be a volunteer in a blood donation camp. When I was in college, I tried to donate blood for several times, ________ I failed because I was underweight. After that it never ________ me to donate again, so this time I dialed the number and volunteered for it

It was fun volunteering for it. The blood donation camp was set up every three months, so I used to go out and meet new and old _________. It was a sort of picnic for me till one day a teenage girl came up to the camp.

“Hello! Um, I’m suffering from hemolytic anemia (溶血性贫血), so I just want to know if there is an __________ in the camp for plasma (血浆) donors?” she asked.

To be frank, I could not even ________what she was suffering from, but I was sure I heard “anemia”. Despite a nonprofessional in biology, at least I knew “anemia” had _________ to do with adeficiency (缺乏) of blood in a person. I __________ all the key points of my biology classes just not to make a fool of myself there but still said, “I’m sorry I didn’t __________ it. What are you suffering from?”

“I’m suffering from hemolytic anemia. It is a disorder where the red blood cells are destroyed before their normal life span. In every 120 days, I am ______ a blood transfusion (输血),” she replied.

“Oh, I’m sorry, but clearly you need blood in your body. Then why do you...”

She smiled and ________ me, “I just want to donate the plasma. You know, it is because of people like you that I’m able to stand here. Everything I do is a gift from people who donate blood. I’m so _________ to all of you and I also want to participate in saving lives. I want to donate plasma __________ there is someone who needs a transfusion of plasma.”

I was speechless. I had never taken blood donation _________. For me, it was just a day of fun laughing with others and eating free ice cream. Here I was standing before a person who was sick but still willing to help others. So I urge everyone to donate blood as much as they can. It does make a (an) ________! It saves lives!

6 . It was nearly half past five in the afternoon. No one was left in the museum, and John was walking around to_______if everything was all right. _______ he saw a painting lying on the floor. John didn’t know how to deal with the painting, so he picked it up and _______ it to the director of the museum.

The director knew they had no such painting in their museum and called several others to _______ and see if it was a stolen painting, but _______ claimed (认领) it. So the director decided to _______ it in the museum. All the experts were _______ to come to look at the painting. Each one said it was _______ and had very deep meaning. The director was _______ to have such a painting in his museum and congratulated John on his ________.

Some weeks ________ a woman and her little son came to the museum. ________ they were looking at the new painting, the little boy began to ________. The director felt there must be some ________ and went over to ________ ask him.

“________ are you crying, young man?”

Hearing the words, the boy stopped crying, ________ to the painting and said, “The painting on the wall is mine and I want it ________.” The director felt very strange and a little embarrassed, but he didn’t believe what the boy had said.

“Yes,” said the boy’s mother, “It was indeed my son who painted it, and he left it on the floor a few weeks ago. If you look ________, you can see his ________ on the painting.”

8 . At just 21 years old, Nija Charles is one of today’s most popular songwriters. She has ______ with Beyonce, Jay Z, Cardi B, Kehlani, SZA and many other today’s ______ music artists. She was even ______   in three Grammy nominations (提名) this year.

But just a few years ago, Charles was only another ______ in the crowd. Growing up in New Jersey, she was ______ into a musical family. “My dad’s a DJ. My mom is a dancer,” Charles recalled. “So growing up, I was always just ______ music.

Charles said her first introduction to ______ music was at age 13 when she asked her mom for a mini keyboard because she ______ to produce. “So she got ______ for me, and right then and there, I ______ banging (敲打) on the keyboard,” she said.

Charles continued to study music at New York University, where she’d make beats in her dormitory and _____ them online. Soon she ______ herself flying across the country on weekends. performing on stage and studying.

“It was very ______ . There were some classes I ______ had to skip. But yeah, it was just ______ management and I had to ______ and finish my homework before I got on the plane or do my homework on the plane and then write the ______ during the weekend. I make sure I studied hard ______ I could finish school that year,” she said.

Talking about her success, Charles said. “It’s ______ that my favorite artists are now the people I work with. Several years ago, I was at their ______ and now I’m in the studio with them.”

9 . It was a vacation when I was 16. I was on a one-week-long trip with some students to ______ a Seminary (神学院) college in Iowa. On the way our ______ had stopped in Chicago for a few days. We were ______ in a building owned by the church on the south side of the city. In the evening I ______ to go out for a short walk. I was going down a street when I ______ other people making a wide berth (安全距离) around someone sitting on the sidewalk. His clothes were ______, worn and torn. His skin was dirty and I could ______ him from several feet away. I stopped in my ______. I had never seen a homeless person before. Then my mind ______ back and I realized I had seen a homeless person once before: Me.

It was a summer night in my 11th year when the home I grew up in ______ fire in the middle of the night. I can still ______ all of us standing outside while the fire destroyed everything we owned. My dad was busying. My grandma and mom were ______. And my brothers and I were standing in ______, scare and silence. ______, friends took us in that ______. Our small town community gathered around us. They fed us, brought us clothes, and within a few days helped our dad to rent a ______. I could remember feeling ______ and blessed even after losing so much.

The homeless man sitting there, however, couldn’t depend on anyone. I could see the ______ and despair (绝望) in his eyes. I only had a few dollars left in my wallet but I didn’t hesitate. I ______ and handed it to the man, talked with him, comforted him.

I have often ______ what happened to him over the years. Did he make it off the streets? Did he die there? I don’t know. I do know that I was no better than he was, only more fortunate.