Okay, I deactivated WP Mail SMTP which would not authenticate my email login even though it was the correct info. I installed and set-up Postman SMTP with the same settings. However, it has instructions to set up a Google Client ID and Client Secret so as to make gmail allow wordpress to send/receive mail, aka it is more secure, which makes gmail not block emails coming from contact forms.
So Contact Form 7 is okay, just will not work on its own with many servers or gmail. Just an FYI for anyone with a similar problem.
It took me all afternoon to figure this crap out...UGH.