HP-35s Programming

[ruyes]

40 year HP-41 user... purchased a HP-35s. Trying to display text with variable and have variable in the x register to work on it. I see that flag 10 and pressing "EQN" might allow text typing, but how do I select the pink alpha characters to do so? When I type "L" after "EQN:" I get "^". Please provide "dummy" key press programming instructions, rather than just what I see in examples like "NUMBER IS" ( i.e. what key presses does it take in writing the program to display the text with variable). Also, when my program is stopped (R/S) to show the value at a point in my program, the value displayed is NOT in the x register, so I must "RCL" it to work on that variable. How do I place it in "x" and show it with the text, such that I can just multiply it, divide it or replace it with another number?