Wps attachment

Hello,
I am a senior citizen and this is my first computer. I am so overwhelmed that I may be in divorce court soon. Can anyone save my sanity and my marriage. I have a Compaq Presario Notebook PC with Windows Vista. I know I also have Adobe Reader 9 installed because I just downloaed it. My problem is when I send emails to my sisters (who also have Windows XP & Vista) the attachment which I created in my Microsoft Works area and I've saved the document, it goes as a .wps attachment and then cannot be opened by either sister. I then tried to save it in rtf (rich text format) and then I get something that states Adobe Reader cannot open that file. I tried to download a free software (PDF) but that only screwed everything up (although it was succesful, I could not access the document again, so I uninstalled the PDF - I think and hope). I hope someone can help me navigate through this computerese and help me as they would their own mother.