Get label.text from UILabel in an instance method iOS 7 - objective-c

Question

I have a pickerview that displays an array of locations (2 components); below that are 2 UILabels (2 under each component).
When a user opens the app, the picker defaults to the first object in each array in the picker components and changes the label below to reflect that selection.
So it would look something like this:
|PickerComponent1|PickerComponent2|
| Label 1 | Label 2 |
It displays the labels correctly when [viewDidLoad] is called. The labels changed to the appropriate names.
I created an instance method - but I can't pass the text value of the labels to that method.
The log displays (null) and it's coming back as empty.
Any ideas on how I can pass that label text to the method appropriately?
*edit: if I put that code that assigned label1 and the NSLog line into the viewDidLoad method it prints out the label text appropriately. When I put it into the method it does not.
My viewDidLoad in my .m file:
- (void)viewDidLoad
{
//set self as delegate for tripPicker
_tripPicker.delegate = self;
//Set size of tripPicker & datePicker
_tripPicker.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(0.60, 0.60);
_datePicker.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeScale(0.60, 0.60);
//Call method to get array of school names (reusable)
MetaMiles *model = [MetaMiles schoolNameList];
_schoolArray1 = (NSArray *)model;
_schoolArray2 = (NSArray *)model;
//Set date to current date
NSDateFormatter *dateFormatter = [[NSDateFormatter alloc]init];
[dateFormatter setDateFormat:#"MM/dd/yyyy"];
_dateLabel.text = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"Date of trip: %#",[dateFormatter stringFromDate:self.datePicker.date ]];
//Set selector method for datePicker so on the value change it updates the date
[self.datePicker addTarget:self action:#selector(updateLabelForDate:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventValueChanged];
[super viewDidLoad];
//Set labels to be appropriate schools
begSchoolLabel.text = [_schoolArray1 objectAtIndex:[_tripPicker selectedRowInComponent:0]];
endSchoolLabel.text = [_schoolArray2 objectAtIndex:[_tripPicker selectedRowInComponent:1]];
//Update the Mileage indicator to display miles between currently selected values
ML54AddMilesViewController *milesObject = [[ML54AddMilesViewController alloc]init];
NSArray *currentMiles = [milesObject getMileage];
NSLog(#"Current Miles first run: %#",currentMiles);
}
My getMileage method:
- (NSArray *)getMileage {
//Update the Mileage indicator to display miles between currently selected values
NSString *begSchool = begSchoolLabel.text;
NSLog(#"FIRE THIS OFF : %#",begSchool);
NSString *endSchool = endSchoolLabel.text;
NSPredicate *milesFilter = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"beg_school=%# AND end_school=%#", begSchool, endSchool];
NSArray *resultMiles = [MetaMiles MR_findAllWithPredicate:milesFilter];
if (!resultMiles || ![resultMiles count]) {
NSLog(#"Empty Array");
} else {
NSLog(#"Our array is: %#", [resultMiles objectAtIndex:0]);}
return resultMiles;
}

Answer 1

What I ended up doing was instead of using the label to get the text - I just had it nab whatever the picker had chosen. The label updates appropriately but for some reason I couldn't pass it between methods - this other way I was able to do that.