Don't panic. We will get you there.
if (buttonState = HIGH){
In your if and if else statements you have syntax like above. You are making a comparison in the if and if else statements. Use = for assignment and == for comparison. So the statements should be like:
if (buttonState == HIGH){
Note the == instead of = in the comparison.
From:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/If
Warning:
Beware of accidentally using the single equal sign (e.g. if (x = 10) ). The single equal sign is the assignment operator, and sets x to 10 (puts the value 10 into the variable x). Instead use the double equal sign (e.g. if (x == 10) ), which is the comparison operator, and tests whether x is equal to 10 or not. The latter statement is only true if x equals 10, but the former statement will always be true.
This is because C evaluates the statement if (x=10) as follows: 10 is assigned to x (remember that the single equal sign is the assignment operator), so x now contains 10. Then the 'if' conditional evaluates 10, which always evaluates to TRUE, since any non-zero number evaluates to TRUE. Consequently, if (x = 10) will always evaluate to TRUE, which is not the desired result when using an 'if' statement. Additionally, the variable x will be set to 10, which is also not a desired action.
Please use code tags when posting code like it says in the "how to use the forum" stickies.