How would I get the val selectedCountry which I believe is local to that function available to use in other functions or is there a way I can get what the current selected value of the spinner is?

I tried to treat it like Pyhton and Java where I would call the funtion and it would return that value but that did not work.

class MainActivity : ComponentActivity() {
    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(currencyconvertermain)
        val ConvertCurrency = findViewById<Button>(R.id.convertcurrency)
        val CurrencyOutput = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.currencyoutput)
        val CurrencyInput = findViewById<EditText>(R.id.currencyinput)
        val CountrySelect = findViewById<Spinner>(R.id.CountrySelect)
        val CountryImage = findViewById<ImageView>(R.id.CurrencyFlag)
        val CountrySelectAdapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(this, R.array.dropdown_items, android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item,)
        CountrySelect.adapter = CountrySelectAdapter

        CountrySelect.onItemSelectedListener = object : AdapterView.OnItemSelectedListener {
            override fun onItemSelected(
                parentView: AdapterView<*>,
                selectedItemView: View?,
                position: Int,
                id: Long,
            ) {
                val selectedCountry = parentView.getItemAtPosition(position).toString()
                if (selectedCountry == "Japan") {
                    CountryImage.setImageResource(R.drawable.japan)
                }
                if (selectedCountry == "Phillipenes") {
                    CountryImage.setImageResource(R.drawable.philippines)
                }
                if (selectedCountry == "Nepal") {
                    CountryImage.setImageResource(R.drawable.nepal)
                }
                if (selectedCountry == "Vietnam") {
                    CountryImage.setImageResource(R.drawable.vietnam)
                }
                if (selectedCountry == "Taiwan") {
                    CountryImage.setImageResource(R.drawable.taiwan)
                }
            }

            override fun onNothingSelected(parentView: AdapterView<*>) {}
        }
    }
}