I'm not sure how verizon works, but for sprint's picture mail, when you save the picture to your phone, its locked and therefore doesn't let you add it to a contact, and if you try it causes the phone to reset. i haven't tried to forward it to gmail and download, i just go on a computer to the picture site and put it in an album reachable from my phone to download. yes a bit confusing and very irritating.
