Find and return a WebElement via its "label"

Question

I'm trying to create a general method to find a WebElement by its "label" (e.g. the text displayed in a button) and returning the WebElement:

//Find Webelement by Label
protected WebElement getWebElementByLabel(String strCSSselector, String strTargetLabel) {

    //Create list with all elements via CSSselector
    List<WebElement> elementList = driver.findElements(By.cssSelector(strCSSselector));

    //Create return element
    WebElement returnElement;

    //Identify the via its label
    for (WebElement element : elementList) {
        
        //Read label from element
        String strElementLabel = element.getText();             
        
        //Set return value if target label found
        if (strElementLabel.equals(strTargetLabel)) {           
            returnElement = element;                
            }                           
        }

    //Return webelement
    return returnElement;                               

    }       

However, I get the error 'The local variable returnElement may not have been initialized'. Any ideas on how to resolve this are appreciated. If possible I would prefer to return the value from within the for-loop (if this is not possible a hint on the "why" would be appreciated).

Note: For now I'm ignoring the case that multiple elements might have the same name