Perpetual Education Fund a new era of church history

OREM, Utah — LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley called Elder John K. Carmack on the phone about a \"bold new initiative.\" It was February 2001, and Elder Carmack of the Quorum of the Seventy was serving as president of the Europe Central Area in Frankfurt, Germany.

\"We've got great missionaries from all these countries, especially Latin America, who serve their missions and then go back to poverty,\" Elder Carmack remembered President Hinckley saying. \"We're going to do something about it.\"

Elder Carmack was about to play a role in what he called a new era of church history.

A few months after the phone call, President Hinckley announced the formation of the Perpetual Education Fund, a loan program to help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints get an education in less-advantaged countries around the world. Elder Carmack was made an emeritus general authority of the church and became the fund's managing director.

Elder Carmack spoke about the fund on Friday, Nov. 6, at the 10th annual Mormon Studies Conference at Utah Valley University. The conference theme this year was \"Outmigration and the Mormon Quest for Education.\"

According to Elder Carmack, the Perpetual Education Fund or PEF is an outgrowth of the current phase of Mormon Church history.

The first phase of LDS history was the \"restoration\" or \"revelatory\" phase. Joseph Smith received revelations, translated scriptures and established the church.

The second phase was the \"emigration and colonization\" phase. \"It was a time when we sought a place of safety where the church could escape its persecutors, a place where they could grow and develop without having to fight for their lives,\" Elder Carmack said. \"The key to that phase, of bringing all of those people, ... was the Perpetual Emigration Fund.\"

The Perpetual Emigration Fund, which made loans to Mormons around the world, helped them come to Utah. The current Perpetual Education Fund was modeled after this second-phase program.

The third phase was the \"expansion phase.\" This involved Mormons leaving Utah and moving to other areas of the country — the \"outmigration\" that the Mormon Studies Conference was examining.

Up to the 20th century, the church was centered in the Intermountain West. \"At that time they didn't know if the church could even exist and prosper unless they were a majority in a small community,\" Elder Carmack said.

The success of Mormons in parts of California proved that it was possible for the church to flourish. The first stake in an urban area outside of the Mormon corridor was established in the Los Angeles area in 1923. Many more stakes in more areas quickly followed as President Heber J. Grant gave his approval.