Hi Charli! I think I can help a little bit. Those Ball preserving jars you have are mason jars. Mason is a brand of jar, but the word mason has become a term for all canning jars, kinda like in america we use the word Kleenex for a tissue, though kleenex is a brand.
The one critical thing to successful canning with Ball (or Kerr or any other brand) is you have to use new lids every time. The rings can be reused many times. New lids are cheap, and it's not worth the risk of trying to
reuse lids to save money and end up in the hospital with food borne illnesses, including but not limited to botulism.
The key to safe canning that won't make people sick is to follow the guidelines on canning time. It varies depending on the kind of food being preserved, and your altitude above sea level. Another key is acidity. Often recipes require adding lemon juice or citric acid for example, to get the pH of the food in the jar low
enough so nasties won't grow and make people sick. Here's a
link to Ball's preserving site with some pdf's on how to can.
Pressure canning is different than
water bath. Pressure canning is needed to can things like meat for example. The pressure inside the vessel will raise the boiling point of the water inside to 240 Fahrenheit (or about 115 celsius) or higher, necessary for safe preserving of certain foods.
With your massive stock pot, you're ready to do water bath canning. Maybe you need a few tools like the thing that safely grabs the full jars to remove them from the bath when the processing time is over. Let me know if you have more questions and I will do my best to help!
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