i am a recently converted muslim from california hamdulillah. i converted last year around this time.. i am still learning all i can and finding new things everyday.. i have had a hard time praying as i am not arabic speaking therefore must learn what all the words mean and for the most part remember the surahs from sound.. brief history: i am in the us air force (3 and something yrs in) i deployed to balad iraq which we no longer support or control. while i was there i first heard of islam.. incredible for me to go 22 years without knowing anything of it i was in no way interested or knew anything about it and didn't much care to learn, i was brought up catholic and studied the bible but thought it to be nothing more than fictional stories to keep people in check, i didn't know the difference between any religion and thought all were different including jews and christians. fastforward 1.5 yrs from that time i met a muslim girl at a gathering at a friends house in a nearby city on a day off and discovered she was muslim, so i started a conversation on that, 2 months later and some reading of the quran and general googling/ research i found some peace in the teachings and discovered god to be real and all existing, so i converted for myself.. 2 months later i got married to that girl, its been 10 months since that marriage and still haven't learned to pray very well i am studying and trying my best to understand it all, until about 3 weeks ago i had no idea the recitations i was doing were the surahs from the quran and have since been able to better understand what i have to do. yes my wife is muslim but she does not pray as much as i beg her to help me in this endeavor and is embarrassed of me telling this truth as i understand it is bad on her especially leaving me to try this on my own.. i finally wrote a set by step guide through the process choosing an-nas, - al-falaq, and al-asr as my surahs to include for my prayers i wrote the transliterations down and am trying to pray them as best i can.. however i always seem to be deterred from these attempts by something, feeling awkward or lazy which i have come to think to be the jinn and shayton keeping me from the right path which al fatiha speaks of.. anyway this is my introduction and my honest struggle i truly want to be a good muslim, i have given up on drinking and don't eat pork. the few things i know i try to stay true on.. insha-allah one day i can lead a prayer at home to include my wife and i hope in time she will start wearing a hijab as i have almost begged her to do for me (theres always excuses) but only allah ta'ala knows whats in her heart and her struggle in these matters. god bless everyone here