Good to hear you're doing well with the nexstar, it's the plane I got and learned on, and still using it since I only started a couple of weeks ago. Personally I never tried out the AFS because I wanted to learn without having to rely on that, and it only ended up taking me a couple of flights to get my wings. The way I did it, is even though I was nervous and really didn't want to land...I just practiced a few approaches, and my instructor asked me if I wanted to land, and I took a shot and it went well. I'd say just go for landing, it's better to get it over with, but practice a few landing approaches and get lower and lower until you land. Oh and just be careful when you start taking off the extra training accessories, I took off the speed brakes(luckily while still with the instructor) and it completely changed the trim, and the plane wanted to go down with full trim, so I got the instructor to land it and we changed that real fast. Although I havn't taken off the wing tips, I'm getting a feeling the same might happen with that,lol.

Good luck with the flying, before you know it you'll be soloing