A heavy rain hit a small village. The floods (洪水) started to rise. A priest (神父) was praying (祈祷) in a church (教堂). The flood was almost above his knees. A rescuer (救助者) shipped to the priest and said, “Godfather, come up or you will die.” The priest said, “No, I'm sure God will save me. You may leave for others.”

    After a while, water covered his shoulder, the priest had to move onto an altar (祭坛). This time a policeman came over in a yacht (游艇) and said, “Come up or you will die!” The priest said, “No, I have to keep my church. I believe God will save me. You just go and save other people.” A moment later, his church was flooded. The priest had to hold firmly (牢固地) the cross on the top of the church.

    A helicopter (直升机) was flying over him where a pilot put down a rope ladder and shouted, “Godfather, come up! This is your last chance! We don't want you to die!” But he said firmly, “No, I have to keep my church. I believe God will save me. You just go and save other people. God will be with me.” Great flood soon came over. The priest was killed.

    The priest went to Heaven (天堂) where he saw the God. He asked angrily, “God, I served you honestly, but why didn't you save me?” The God said, “Didn't I? The first time I gave you a ship and you refused. The second time I gave you a yacht you refused again. The third time I sent you a helicopter you still didn't accept. So I thought you wished to stay with me in a hurry.”

    In fact, the obstacles (障碍) in our life are because we are stubborn (顽固) and ignorant(无知).

    Once upon a time in a land far away, there was a wonderful old man who loved all kinds of small animals, such as spiders, insects and butterflies and so on.

    One day while walking through the woods, the nice old man found a cocoon（茧） of a butterfly. He took it home.

    A few days later, a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to make its body out of that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared it could go no farther.

    Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then got out of the cocoon easily.

    But it had a swollen（肿胀的） body and small shriveled（枯萎的） wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge to be able to support the body, which would contract（收缩） in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

    What the warm-hearted man in his kindness did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were Nature's way of forcing fluid（体液） from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

    Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were allowed to go through our life without any difficulties, it would be bad for us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

    From Feb. 8 to Mar. l is our winter holiday. I think everybody did a lot in the holiday. But it seems that I did nothing and it was my most unlucky holiday.

    I spent a lot of time on my homework. Every morning my mother woke me up early and I had breakfast in a hurry. Then I had to do my homework almost the whole day! I'm not a very slow person but the homework was too heavy!

    I was also unlucky when playing. During the Spring Festival, I played fireworks but my finger was hurt because I was careless to light the fireworks. I began to fear playing with fireworks from then.

    I was still unlucky on my friend's party. On my friend's birthday, unusually I woke up at 10:50 because my parents went to visit my grandmother early in the morning. The party would start in 10 minutes! So I hurried to my friend's home without breakfast. I returned very late that day and when I got home, my parents were very angry with me.

    Another worrying thing was Toy weight. Last term, I was 46 kg but now I am 51 kg! I have to consider losing weight!

 It's 2: 30 in the afternoon. The house is quiet(安静的)." Tom?" Mom says. No one answers.

 Mom comes to Tom's room. He is not on the bed, but his model plane is on the desk." He is not in his room, and he is not in the yard, " Mom thinks. Then Mom comes to his grandparents' room. Tom likes to play with his grandpa's tape player, but he is not there.

 Mom looks for Tom everywhere. Where is Tom? Mom is worried. She wants to call Dad. She comes to the living room to get the phone.

" What's that? " Mom sees something black under the sofa. Oh, it's Eric, Tom's dog. It loves sleeping there. What is next to Eric? It's Tom!