Near the temple site, President Uchtdorf and Elder Andersen visited Kiev's Automated Diagnostical Center, a medical clinic providing diagnostic services for the low-income and socially at-risk of the area, including victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The church has made donations to purchase advanced diagnostic equipment for the clinic in partnership with the Ukrainian government and other donors.

They left more than just medical equipment, as President Uchtdorf presented a small Christus statue to clinic board member Aleksander Serafimovich Sytnyk, to be placed on display at the medical clinic.

The pair also met with full-time missionaries of the Ukraine Kiev Mission. "Build the church in Ukraine," President Uchtdorf told the missionaries. "In 20 years, if (you) stay on the path, (you) will realize great blessings."

In Samara, the two church leaders visited local marketplaces, walked through gardens at a dacha and met with local members.

Also while in Moscow, President Uchtdorf and Elder Andersen visited a historic Baptist church where Ezra Taft Benson — then the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and later the LDS Church president — spoke a half-century earlier in what was then the Soviet Union.

E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com