Why can't I sharpen my knife?

just bought a smiths tri hone stone set for 20$ because i know I'm not good at sharpening knives, so i didn't want to buy something expensive if i couldn't use it properly. The blade i am currently trying to put a good edge on is the gerber evo jr. It seems like i have a good consistency of every thing when i am trying to sharpen it but its just not working out. I would like to just be able to push it through paper like er but it just can barely get started into the paper. Any suggestions?