I don't want to sound cliched, but I do feel your pain.
I was caught on a few tricks here and there.
Alas without real time communication with someone it IS difficult.
You have a question and try to word it as best you can. The other person hears it, but it gets changed by what they think they hear and they reply to that. You then repeat what they did with their reply and you get little result.
Hang in there. It does get easier with time and practice.
Good to hear you got it working.
I would suggest getting a pen and paper (yeah: old school) and writing down NOTES. Not long complicated stuff.
You will get sick of that too quickly.
This will take a lot of attempts to get right.
Write down the KEY POINTS to do a SPECIFIC thing.
10 words or less if possible.
Too many words puts you off wanting to read it later.