Forbidden to Preach?

Mormon 1:17 [BOM]
“But I did remain among them, but I was forbidden to preach unto them, because of the hardness of their hearts; and because of the hardness of their hearts the land was cursed for their sake.”
I reviewed my notes on this section of the Book of Mormon, titled Mormon. It is in this that Mormon hides the plates, of course he records doing this as if he already did. Then he says “save a few plates I gave to my son Moroni.” I guess these plates are the ones the rest of the Book of Mormon was written on. I don’t really get all that. From the writing on plates, the confounded story supposedly written on them, or the hiding of the plates for safe keeping. I mean if it was so important that these plates be saved for safe keeping so later generations would benefit from them, why do we not have access to them now? Why? We have holy Scripture, it never had to be hidden in a hill, never had to be written on metal plates for preservation. Nothing like that. They were written on papyrus and vellum etc, and copied, and copied, and copied. Why is there only one singular record of these plates. Why would their not be more copies of this great history? None of it makes sense.
But then that has nothing to do with this verse. Here Mormon is forbidden to preach to the people because of the hardness of their hearts,. He alone gets the gospel because he ws “somewhat of a sober mind” as he says. Really, somewhat of a sober mind? Just half drunk?
But he is forbidden to preach. That doesn’t make sense. Not for a God who elsewhere declares : “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? (Ezekiel 18:23 (ESV) And for this reason commands Ezekiel to preach, especially to the wicked who have hard hearts. Or for a God who says: 1 Tim. 2:3-7 (ESV)
This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, [4] who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. [5] For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, [6] who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. [7] For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

But here I am to believe that God visited a fifteen year old with a somewhat sobermind, and gave him the gospel so that he would not preach it? I don’t think so.