I decided sword at temple and holy symbol at abbey.   Ally is the old raven tome I gave to RvR that he stole it from the castle on a previously failed raid

I fudged the whole tarroka deck when I read it, but that was mainly because I didn't force my players into a card reading interaction early in the game. In retrospect, I probably should have made sure they did that encounter one way or another, as it provides some guidance to how they will explore Barovia. 

In any case, what I ended up doing was putting the items in areas that I thought made sense thematically (Tome of Strahd at the Amber temple where he made a deal with the dark powers, Sunsword in the protection of the Knights of the Silver Dragon at Arganvostholt, Symbol of Ravenkind at the Abbey of St. Markovia). I then had the party receive some help from both Van Ricthen and Ezmerelda, as it made sense based on their previous interactions with both (although, I would definitely recommend limiting their assistants to one character).