by lindawing » May 14th, 2017, 2:53 pm
Those are great questions. I'll take them in order. Again, I have to assume that, generally speaking, our versions are at least similar.
Villages...I personally love living in the villages, and fixing up the houses and farms for the villagers. It can be a problem for the Villagers, though, if you are there at night and you haven't protected them with fences/walls and lights. Zombies will try to get to them at night, and either kill them or convert them to Zombie Villagers. If you have a bed, you can sleep the nights away until you have everything safe. That also assures that you will spawn at your bed, if you die. You could also send the nights about 56 blocks away (horizontally or vertically) from the village. Also, you could play on Peaceful (no hostile mobs) for the first couple of times you take on a village.
Houses vs. Exploring...I like to have a base where I keep collected stuff, but you don't have to...whatever feels good when you're playing, go with it. In the PC game, and probably in your version, there is a readout at the top left corner that you can bring up (with the PC it's F3),and it shows you your X, Y, and Z coordinates. Once you learn how to use them (I can help) you can find anything as long as you've written them down somewhere. I keep notes for every map I play. Also, once you have the materials, you can make a compass, and maps, too.
We have a tutorial here, for the basics. It's for the PC, and it hasn't been updated for quite some time. Still, it might help you with some of the basics. I'll get you the link.